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PR 4557 .Al 1907
Dickens, Charles

Christmas books

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https://archive.org/details/christmasbooksO000char_h3w5

THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY

THE
CHRISTMAS BOOKS

CHARLES DICKENS

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EDITOR'S NOTE

Charles Dickens, the son of a clerk in the
Navy Pay Office, was the second of eight
children. He was born on the 7th of February,
1812, at Landport.

In 1821 his father lost his situation owing
to reforms in the Admiralty and removed to
London. Here misfortune awaited him, and
he was ere long committed to the Marshalsea
for debt. As a result, Charles, at the age of
ten, was placed in a blacking factory. But
brighter days followed, and Dickens became
a reporter in Doctors’ Commons, whilst in
1834 he was appointed to the reporting staff
of the Morning Chrontcle.

Sketches by Boz, published in 1835-36,
was closely followed by the fam us Post-
humous Papers of the Pickwick Club,
which won for Dickens a foremost place
among his contemporaries. Success thereafter
followed success, and he became the most
popular novelist of the day.

In 1843 he wrote A Christmas Carol, the
forerunner of his Christmas Books. The
last of these books, The Haunted Man,
was published in 1848.

The Christmas Books were extraordinarily
successful, and were received on all sides
with nothing but praise. Thackeray wrote
of the Chrtstmas Carol, “ Who can listen
to objections regarding such a book as
this? It seems to me a national benefit, and
to every man or woman who reads it a
personal kindness.”

In the midst of his lat work, The Mystery
of Edwin Drood, Dickens died suddenly
on the 9th of June, 1870.

ee}
AS

BY

CHARLES DICKENS

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
~ LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK,
TORONTO & MELBOURNE
MCMVII

ANDERSON COLLEGE
LIBRARY
ANDE® SON, TNOIANA

ll

1907

CONTENTS

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

THE CHIMES ° .
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTII.
THE BATTLE OF LIFE .

THE HAUNTED MAN ‘

ANDERSON COLLEGE
LIBRARY
ANDERSON, INDIANA

=e
CaM Teg
svete ath

WHT Wi Tea

(oot ty rere oa
walt UAT
Halk UATRUA a

A CHRISTMAS CAROL
IN PROSE

BEING

A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS

« OAD Shik etAnD A».

Gmiae met r
~- | 7 : - ~ 7
ANTUNK 3o VIO Ne ae

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

STAVE ONE

MARLEY’S GHOST

MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt what-
ever about that. The register of his burial was signed by
the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief
mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was
good upon ’Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own know-
ledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I
might have been inclined myself to regard a coffin-nail as
the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the
wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed
hands shall not disturb it, or the country’s done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How
could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I
don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor,
his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary
legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge
was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he
was an excellent man of business on the very day of the
funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the
point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was
dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing
wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If
we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s father died
before the play began, there would be nothing more remark-
able in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon
his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-

aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy
ll

12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

spot—say St. Paul’s Churchyard for instance—literally to
astonish his son’s weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it
stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge
and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.
Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge
Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both
names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone,
Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutch-
ing, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from
which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret,
and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold
within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,
shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red,
his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating
voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows,
and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature
always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days;
and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.
No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No
wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was
more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to
entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him.
The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could
boast of the advantage over him in only one respect: they
often ‘came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with
gladsome looks, ‘“‘ My dear Scrooge, how are you? When
will you come to see me?’’ No beggars implored him to
bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock,
no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way
to such and such a place of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s
dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming
on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts;
and then would wag their tails as though they said, “ No
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master! ”’

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he
liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life,
warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what
the knowing ones call “ nuts” to Scrooge.

Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on

MARLEY’S GHOST 13

Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.
It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he
could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up
and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and
stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm
them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was
quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles
were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so
dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest,
the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy
cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one
might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was
brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open, that he
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell
beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge hada
very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller
that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it,
for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room, and so surely
as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm him-
self at the candle, in which effort, not being a man of strong
imagination, he failed.

“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a
cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who
came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation
he had of his approach.

“Bah!” said Scrooge, ‘‘ Humbug!”

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog
and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a
glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled,
and his breath smoked again.

“ Christmas a humbug, uncle! ” said Scrooge’s nephew.
* You don’t mean that, I am sure?”

“I do,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ Merry Christmas! What right
have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry?
You’re poor enough.”

“Come then,’ returned the nephew, gaily. ‘‘ What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be
morose? You’re rich enough.”

14 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the
moment, said, ‘“‘ Bah!” again, and followed it up with
“Humbug! ”

* Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.

“ What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “‘ when I live
in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out
upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you buta
time for paying bills without money; a time for finding
yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for
balancing your books and having every item in ’em through
a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If
I could work my will,’ said Scrooge, indignantly, “ every
idiot who goes about with ‘ Merry Christmas’ on his lips,
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a
stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

*‘ Nephew! ” returned the uncle, sternly, ‘‘ keep Christ-
mas in your own way, and Jet me keep it in mine.”

“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. ‘But you
don’t keep it.”

“ Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you! ”

“There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,”
returned the nephew, “ Christmas among the rest. But I
am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it
has come round—apart from the veneration due to its
sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charit-
able, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long
calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of
people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers
to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on
other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never
put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it
has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God
bless it!”

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becom-
ing immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the
fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

“Let me hear another sound from you,” said Scrooge,
«and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation!

MARLEY’S GHOST 15

You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,” he added, turning to
his nephew. ‘“‘ I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”

“Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! dine with us to-
morrow.”

Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did.
He went the whole length of the expression, and said that
he would see him in that extremity first.

“But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. ‘“ Why?”

“Why did you get married? ” said Scrooge.

“ Because I fell in love.”

** Because you fell in love,” growled Scrooge, as if that
were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a
merry Christmas. ‘‘ Good afternoon.”

““ Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now? ”

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

“ T want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why
cannot we be friends? ”

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

“T am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute.
We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a
party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas,
and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. Soa Merry
Christmas, uncle! ”

“ Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

“ And a happy New Year!”

“Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word, not-
withstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the
greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was
warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially.

“ There’s another fellow,’ muttered Scrooge, who over-
heard him: ‘‘ my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and
a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll
retire to Bedlam.”

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let
two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant
to behold, and now stood with their hats off, in Scrooge’s
office. They had books and papers in their hands, and
bowed to him.

“Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe?” said one of the
gentlemen, referring to his list. ‘‘ Have I the pleasure of
addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”

16 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

‘Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” Scrooge
replied. ‘He died seven years ago this very night.”

““ We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by
his surviving partner,” said the gentleman, presenting his
credentials.

It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits.
At the ominous word “ liberality’ Scrooge frowned, and
shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said
the gentleman, taking up a pen, “ it is more than usually
desirable that we should make some slight provision for
the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present
time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

** Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,”’ said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again.

“And the union workhouses?”’ demanded Scrooge.
“ Are they still in operation? ”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “ I wish I
could say they were not.”

“The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour then?”
said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that
something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,”
said Scrooge. ‘“‘ I am very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned
the gentleman, ‘‘a few of us are endeavouring to raise a
fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of
warmth. We choose this time because it is a time, of all
others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices.
What shall I put you down for? ”

“ Nothing,” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous? ”

““ T wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “‘ Since you ask
me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t
make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make
idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I
have mentioned—they cost enough: and those who are
badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die,”

MARLEY’S GHOST 17

“Tf they would rather die,” said Scrooge, ‘‘ they had
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides
—excuse me—I don’t know that.”

“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

“ It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “ It’s enough
for a man to understand his own business, and not to inter-
fere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly.
Good afternoon, gentlemen! ”

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their
point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his
Jabours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more
facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services
to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their
way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell
was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a gothic
window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours
and quarters in the clouds with tremulous vibrations after-
wards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up
there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at
the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the
gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round
which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered, warm-
ing their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in
rapture. The water plug being left in solitude, its over-
flowings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic
ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and
berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers’ and grocers’ trades
became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it
was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles
as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor,
in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders
to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord
Mayor’s household should; and even the little tailor, whom
he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being
drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow’s
pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby
sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting
cold. If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil
Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead

COLLEGE ae
Bee co SRB
ANNERSON. INDIANA

18 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have
roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young
nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are
gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale
him with a Christmas carol; but at the first sound of

“ God bless you, merry gentleman,

May nothing you dismay !”

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the
singer fled in terror, leaving the key-hole to the fog, and
even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool,
and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the
tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his
hat.

“You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said
Scrooge.

“Tf quite convenient, sir.”

“ Tt’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “ and it’s not fair.
If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-
used, [’ll be bound! ”’

The clerk smiled faintly.

* And yet,” said Scrooge, “‘ you don’t think me ill-used,
when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

* A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-
fifth of December!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat
to the chin. ‘‘ But I suppose you must have the whole
day. Be here all the earlier next morning.”

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked
out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and
the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling
below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a
slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times,
in honour of its being Christmas-eve, and then ran home to
Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman’s
bull.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melan-
choly tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and be-
guiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went
home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged
to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms,

MARLEY’S GHOST 19

in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so
little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying
it must have run there when it was a young house, playing
at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the
way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough;
for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all
let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge,
who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of
the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat
in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular
about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large.
It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning,
during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge
had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in
the City of London, even including—which is a bold word
—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be
borne in mind, that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought
on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years’ dead
partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to
me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key
in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its under-
going any intermediate process of change—not a knocker,
but Marley’s face.

Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as
the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light
about it, like a bad lobsterina dark cellar. It was not angry
or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look:
with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air;
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible;
but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond
its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a
knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was
not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a
stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his
hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily,
walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he

20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as
if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's
pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing
on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that
held the knocker on, so he said ‘“‘ Pooh, pooh,” and closed
it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder;
every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant’s
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of
its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes.
He fastened the door and walked across the hall, and up
the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up
a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of
Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse
up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-
bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades:
and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and
room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in
the gloom. Halfa dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t
have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it
was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Dark-
ness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his
heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all
was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to
desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as_ they
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the
sofa, a small fire in the grate, spoon and basin ready, and
the litle saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head)
upon the hob. Nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet,
nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a
suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as
usual, Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-
stand on three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed the door and locked himself in;
double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus
secured against surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his
dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap; and sat
down before the fire to take his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter

MARLEY’S GHOST 21

night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it,
before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from
such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built
by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round
with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens
of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air
on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles
putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to
attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven
years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and
swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a
blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its
surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there
would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.

“ Humbug! ” said Scrooge, and walked across the room.

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his
head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a
bell, a disused bell that hung in the room, and communicated
for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the
highest storey of the building. It was with great astonish-
ment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he
looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly
in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but
it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun,
together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep
down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain
over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then
remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses
were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and
then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below;
then coming up the stairs, then coming straight towards
his door.

“It’s humbug still!” said Scrooge. ‘1 won’t believe
i

His colour changed though when, without a pause, it
came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room
before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped
up, as though it cried, “ I know him! Marley’s ghost!” and

fell again.

22 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,
usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter
bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair
upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his
middle. It was long and wound about him like a tail;
and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-
boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses
wrought in steel. His body was transparent, so that Scrooge
observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see
the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heardit said that Marley had no bowels,
but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked
the phantom through and through and saw it standing
before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-
cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief
bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not
observed before; he was still incredulous and fought against
his senses.

“ How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.
“What do you want with me?”

“ Much! ”—Marley’s voice, no doubt about it.

“Who are you? ”

““ Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?” said Scrooge, raising his voice.
“You're particular fora shade.” He was going “to say to
a shade,” but substituted this, as more appropriate.

“In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.”

“Can you—can you sit down?” asked Scrooge, looking
doubtfully at him.

.T ean,”

“Do it, then.”

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t know
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a con-
dition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being
impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing
explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side
of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“T don’t,” said Scrooge.

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond
that of your senses? ”’

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

MARLEY’S GHOST 23

** Why do you doubt your senses? ”

“ Because,”’ said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them.
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You
may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb
of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s
more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are! ”

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes,
nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then.
The truth is, that he tried to be smart as a means of distract-
ing his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for
the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence for a
moment would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.
There was something very awful, too, in the spectre’s being
provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge
could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for
though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and
skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour
from an oven.

“You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge, returning
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned, and
wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the
vision’s stony gaze from himself.

“‘I do,” replied the Ghost.

“You are not looking at it,” said Scrooge.

“ But I see it,’ said the Ghost, “‘ notwithstanding.”

“ Well,” returned Scrooge, ‘‘ I have but to swallow this,
and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of
goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you,
humbug! ”

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its
chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge
held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling in a
swoon. But how much greater was his horror when, the
phantom taking off the bandage round his head as if it were
too warm to wear in-doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon
its breast!

Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before
his face.

“Mercy!” he said. ‘‘ Dreadful apparition, why do you
trouble me? ”

“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “ do
you believe in me or not? i!

24 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“TI do,” said Scrooge; “I must. But why do spirits
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned,
“that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his
fellow-men, and travel far and wide, and if that spirit goes
not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It
is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—
and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared
on earth, and turned to happiness! ”’

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and
wrung its shadowy hands.

“ You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. ‘“‘ Tell me
why?”

“‘T wear the chain I forged in life,’”’ replied the Ghost.
** T made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of
my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its
pattern strange to you?”

Scrooge trembled more and more.

“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “ the weight
and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full
as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.
You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain! ”

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expecta-
tion of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty
fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing.

“Jacob,” he said, imploringly. ‘‘ Old Jacob Marley,
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!”

““T have none to give,” the Ghost replied. ‘“ It comes
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by
other ministers to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you
what I would. <A very little more is all permitted to me.
I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My
spirit never walked beyond our counting-house—mark me!
—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of
our money-changing hole, and weary journeys lie before
me!”

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but
without lifting up his eyes or getting off his knees.

“You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,”
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with
humility and deference.

MARLEY’S GHOST 25

** Slow! ” the Ghost repeated.

“Seven years dead,’ mused Scrooge, “ and travelling
all the time? ”

“ The whole time,” said the Ghost. “‘ No rest, no peace.
Incessant torture of remorse! ”

“You travel fast? ” said Scrooge.

“On the wings of the wind,” replied the Ghost.

“You might have got over a great quantity of ground
in seven years,” said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the
night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting
it for a nuisance.

“Oh! captive bound, and double-ironed,”’ cried the
phantom, ‘ not to know that ages of incessant labour, by
immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity
before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.
Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its
little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too
short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no
space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities
misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!”

“ But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,”
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

“ Business! ” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.
“Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence
were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but
a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! ”’

It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the
cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon
‘the ground again.

“ At this time of the rolling year,”’ the spectre said, ‘ I
suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-
beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to
that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!
Were there no poor homes to which its light would have con-
ducted me?”

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre
going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

“Hear me! ” cried the Ghost. ‘‘ My time is nearly gone.”

“T will,” said Scrooge; ‘“ but don’t be hard upon me!
Don’t be flowery, Jacob, pray!”

26 A CHRISTMAS CARO.

“ How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you
can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you
many and many a day.”

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and
wiped the perspiration from his brow.

“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the
Ghost. ‘‘ I am here to-night to warn you, that you have
yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate—a chance and
hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

“You were always a good friend to me,’
* Thank’eel ”’

“You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “‘ by Three
Spirits.”

Scrooge’s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost’s
had done.

“Ts that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? ”
he demanded in a faltering voice.

bic Ae rad

“‘ J—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge.

“Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “‘ you cannot
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,
when the bell tolls one.”

“ Couldn’t I take ’em all at once and have it over,
Jacob?” hinted Scrooge.

*“ Expect the second on the next night at the same hour;
the third, upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve
has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more, and look
that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed
between us!”

When it had said these words, the spectre took its
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head as
before. Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth
made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage.
He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his super-
natural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with
its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him, and at
every step it took the window raised itself a little, so that
when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned
Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were
within two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up its
hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear, for on

said Scrooge.

MARLEY’S GHOST 27

the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused
noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation and
regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.
The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the
mournful dirge, and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curi-
osity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and
thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every
one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few
(they might be guilty governments) were linked together;
none were free. Many had been personally known to
Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with
one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron
safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being
unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it
saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all
was, clearly, that they sought to interfere for good in human
matters and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist en-
shrouded them, he could not tell, but they and their spirit
voices faded together; and the night became as it had been
when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by
which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he
had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undis-
turbed. He tried to say “ Humbug!” but stopped at the
first syllable; and being, from the emotion he had undergone,
or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible
World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness
of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed
without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

28 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

STAVE TWO
THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that, looking out of
bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window
from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavour-
ing to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the
chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters.
So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to
twelve, then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have
got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater to correct this
most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve,
and stopped.

““ Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “‘ that I can have
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It
isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and
this is twelve at noon! ”

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of
bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged
to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown
before he could see anything, and could see very little then.
All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and
extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people
running to and fro and making a great stir, as there un-
questionably would have been if night had beaten off
bright day and taken possession of the world. This was a
great relief, because ‘‘ Three days after sight of this First of
Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,’”’ and
so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security
if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought,
and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of 1
The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the
more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.

Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time
he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 29

all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring
released, to its first position and presented the same problem
to be worked all through, ‘‘ Was it a dream or not? ”

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three
quarters more, when he remembered on a sudden, that the
Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled
one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed;
and considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to
Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long that he was more than once
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and
missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

“Ding, dong!”

“A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

** Ding, dong! ”

“ Talf-past! ’”’ said Scrooge.

“Ding, dong! ”

“A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

“ Ding, dong! ”

“The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “‘ and
nothing else! ”

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did
with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one. Light flashed
up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed
were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by
ahand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The
curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting
up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to
face with the unearthly visitor who drew them; as close to
it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at
your elbow.

It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a
child as like an old man,viewed through some supernatural
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded
from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions.
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was
white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms
were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if
its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet,
most delicately formed, were, like those upper members,

30 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its
waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was
beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand;
and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had
its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest
thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there
sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was
visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using,
in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which
it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with in-
creasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its
belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark,
so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now
a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty
legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without
a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be
visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And
in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again, distinct
and clear as ever.

“Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to
me?” asked Scrooge.

*hemile

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Who and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

*“T am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge, observant of its
dwarfish stature.

“No. Your past.”

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire
to see the spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “‘ would you so soon put
out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap,
and force me through whole trains of years to wear A low
upon my brow!”

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend,
or any knowledge of having wilfully “‘ bonneted ” the Spirit
at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire
what business brought him there.

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 31

’ “Your welfare! ” said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have
been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have
heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

“ Your reclamation, then. Take heed.”

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him
gently by the arm.

“Rise! and walk with me! ”

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that
the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian
purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long
way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his
slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a
cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as
a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but
finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped
its robe in supplication.

“Tam a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, ‘‘ and liable to
fall.”

“ Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit,
laying it upon his heart, “‘ and you shall be upheld in more
than this! ”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the
wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on
either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Nota vestige
of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had
vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with
snow upon the ground.

“Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands
together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this
place. I was a boy here!”

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still
present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares,
long, long forgotten!

“Your lip is trembling,’ said the Ghost. ‘“ And what
is that upon your cheek? ”

Scrooge muttered, with an unusal catching in his voice,
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him
where he would.

32 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“You recollect the way? ” inquired the Spirit.

“ Remember it! ” cried Scrooge with fervour; “‘ I could
walk it blindfold.”

“Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!”
observed the Ghost. “ Let us go on.”

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every
gate, and post, and tree, until a little market-town appeared
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding
river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards
them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in
country gigs and carts driven by farmers. All these boys
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,”
said the Ghost. ‘‘ They have no consciousness of us.”

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came,
Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he
rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his
cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past?
Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give
each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads
and by-ways for their several homes? What was merry
Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What
good had it ever done to him?

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost.
“« A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken
fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their
walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and
their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the
stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with
grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state,
within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through
the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly
furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthly savour in
the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself

somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and
not too much to eat.

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 33

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to
a door at the back of the house. It opened before them,
and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer
still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these
a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge
sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten
self as he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-
thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh
among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not
the idle swinging of an empty storehouse-door, no, not a
clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with
softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man,
in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look
at, stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt,
and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

“Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.
“It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, 1 know. One
Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all
alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor
boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, ‘‘ and his wild brother,
Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put
down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don’t
you see him? And the Sultan’s groom turned upside down
by the Genii: there he is upon his head! Serve him right.
I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the
Princess!”

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his
nature upon such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice
between laughing and crying, and to see his heightened and
excited face, would have been a surprise to his business
friends in the city, indeed.

“ There’s the Parrot! ” cried Scrooge. ‘“‘ Green body and
yellow tale, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top
of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him,
when he came home again after sailing round the island.
‘ Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe? ’
The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It
was the parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running
for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!”’

i223

34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Then with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, “* Poor
boy!” and cried again.

“I wish,” Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with
his cuff, ‘‘ but it’s too late now.”

‘“‘ What is the matter? ” asked the Spirit.

“Nothing,” said Scrooge. ‘Nothing. There was a
boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I
should like to have given him something; that’s all.”

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:
saying as it did so, ‘‘ Let us see another Christmas! ”

Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels
shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out
of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead;
but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more
than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct;
that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone
again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly
holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down
despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a
mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards
the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck,
and often kissing him, addressed him as her ‘ Dear, dear
brother.” ?

““T have come to bring you home, dear brother! ”’ said
the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to
laugh. ‘ To bring you home, home, home! ”

“Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

“Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. ‘‘ Home, for
good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so
much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven!
He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going
to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you
might come home; and he said, Yes, you should; and sent
me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man! ”
said the child, opening her eyes; ‘“‘ and are never to come
back here; but first, we're to be together all the Christmas
long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 35

< “You are quite a woman, little Fan!” exclaimed the
oy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch
his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in
her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing
loth to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, ‘‘ Bring down Master
Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the school-
master himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a
ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state
of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed
him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering
best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the
wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows
were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of
curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and
administered instalments of those dainties to the young
people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to
offer a glass of “‘ something ”’ to the post-boy, who answered
that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap
as he had tasted before he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s
trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise,
the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly ;
and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep:
the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off
the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

“‘ Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might
have withered,” said the Ghost. ‘‘ But she had a large
heart! ”

‘So she had,” cried Scrooge. ‘‘ You’re right. I will
not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!”

“She died a woman,” said the Ghost, “‘ and had, as I
think, children.”

“One child,” Scrooge returned.

“True,” said the Ghost. ‘ Your nephew!”

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered
briefly) ‘* Yes.”

Although they had but that moment left the school
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of
a city, where shadowy passengers passed and re-passed;
where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and
all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made

36 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it
was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the
streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and
asked Scrooge if he knew it.

“ Know it!” said Scrooge. ‘‘ Was I apprenticed here! ”

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been
two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

“Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezzi-
wig alive again! ”

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his
hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over
himself from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

“Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came
briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice.

“ Dick Wilkins, to be sure! ”’ said Scrooge to the Ghost.
“Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

“Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. ‘‘ No more work
to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!
Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp
clap of his hands, “ before a man can say Jack Robinson! ”

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it!
They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two,
three—had ’em up in their places—four, five, six—barred
“em and pinned ’em—seven, eight, nine—and came back
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-
horses.

“ Hilli-ho! ” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the
high desk with wonderful agility. ‘‘ Clear away, my lads,
and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,
Ebenezer!”

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have
cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezzi-
wig looking on. It was done ina minute. Every movable
was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for
evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps
were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 37

warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a
ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to
the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like
fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast sub-
stantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming
and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts
they broke. In came all the young men and women em-
ployed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her
cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s
particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from
over the way, who was suspected of not having board
enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the
girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had
her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after
another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some
awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came,
anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple
at once; hands half round and back again the other way;
down the middle and up again; round and round in various
stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always
turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off
again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last
and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was
brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop
the dance, cried out, ‘‘ Well done! ” and the fiddler plunged
his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for
that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reappearance, he
instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet,
as if the other fiddler had been carried home exhausted
on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat
him out of sight or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and
more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and
there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great
piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty
of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after
the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind
—the sort of man who knew his business better than you
or I could have told it him!) struck up “ Sir Roger de
Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with
Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too, with a good stiff piece of
work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of

38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people
who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many—ah, four times—
old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so
would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his
partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not high
praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light
appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in
every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have
predicted, at any given time, what would become of them
next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone
all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to
your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-
needle, and back again to your place: Fezziwig “‘ cut ’—
cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and
came upon his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke
up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on
either side the door, and shaking hands with every person
individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry
Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two
*prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful
voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds, which
were under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like
a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the
scene, and with his former self. He corroborated every-
thing, remembered everything, enjoyed everything and
underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now,
when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were
turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and
became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while
the light upon its head burnt very clear.

“A small matter,” said the Ghost, to make these silly
folks so full of gratitude.”

“Small!” echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:
and when he had done so said,

“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of
your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so
much that he deserves this praise? ”

* It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 39

speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.
“Tt isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us
happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome;
a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is im-
possible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happi-
ness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

He felt the Spirit’s glance and stopped.

“What is the matter? ” asked the Ghost.

“ Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.

“‘ Something, I think? ” the Ghost insisted.

“No,” said Scrooge; “‘no. I should like to be able to
say a word or two to my clerk just now. That’s all.”

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utter-
ance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood
side by side in the open air.

““ My time grows short,” observed the Spirit. ‘“‘ Quick!”

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom
he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For
again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in
the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines
of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care
and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless
motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had
taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would
fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl
{n a mourning dress, in whose eyes there were tears, which
sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas
Past.

“It matters little,” she said, softly. ‘‘To you, very
little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer
and comfort you in time to come as I would have tried to
do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

‘‘ What idol has displaced you!” he rejoined.

“ A golden one.”

“This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he
said. ‘ There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty;
and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such
severity as the pursuit of wealth! ”

“ You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently.
* All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your

40 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-
passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not? a

“What then?” he retorted. ‘“ Even if I have grown so
much wiser, what then? Iam not changed towards you.”

She shook her head.

“Am 1?”

“Our contract is an old one. It was made when we
were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season,
we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient in-
dustry. You are changed. When it was made, you were
another man.”

‘* T was a boy,” he said impatiently.

“ Your own feeling tells you that you were not what
you are,” she returned. “I am. That which promised
happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery
now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have
thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have
thought of it, and can release you.”

“Have I ever sought release? ”

“In words. No. Never.”

“ In what, then? ”

“ In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your
sight. If this had never been between us,” said the girl,
looking mildly, but with steadiness upon him, “ tell me,
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!”

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition,
in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, “ You
think not.”

“T would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she answered,
“Heaven knows! When J have learned a truth like this,
I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe
that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your
very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain; or,
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your
one guiding principle to do so, do [not know that your repent-
ance and regret would surely follow? Ido; and I release
you—with a full heart, for the love of him you once were.”

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from
him, she resumed.

“ You may—the memory of what is past half makes me

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 41

hope you will—have pain in this. A very, very brief time,
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an un-
profitable dream, from which it happened well that you
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen! ”

She left him, and they parted.

“‘ Spirit! ” said Scrooge, ‘show me no more! Conduct
me home. Why do you delight to torture me? ”

“* One shadow more! ” exclaimed the Ghost.

“No more! ”’ cried Scrooge. ‘‘ No more. I don’t wish
to see it. Show me no more! ”

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,
and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge
believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room
was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there
than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and,
unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty
children conducting themselves like one, but every child
was conducting himself like forty. The consequence was
uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on
the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,
and enjoyed it very much, and the latter, soon beginning
to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the voung brigands
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of
them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no!
I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that
braided hair and torn it down; and for the precious little
shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul!
to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport as they
did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should
have expected my arm to have grown round it for punish-
ment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have
dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have
questioned her, that she might have opened them ; to have
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should
have liked, 1 do confess, to have had the licence of a child,
and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a

>

42 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and
plundered dress was borne towards it in the centre of a
flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father,
who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas
toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling,
and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!
The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight
by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back,
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of
wonder and delight with which the development of every
package was received! The terrible announcement that the
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,
and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are indescribable alike.
It is enough that, by degrees, the children and their emotions
got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the
top of the house, where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own
fireside; and when he thought that such another creature,
quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called
him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter
of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

** Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a
smile, ‘* I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.”

“Who was it?”

* Guess? ””

“How can I? Tut, don’t I know!” she added, in the
same breath, laughing as he laughed. ‘“ Mr. Scrooge.”

“Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and
as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone—quite alone in the
world, I do believe.”

“Spirit! ’”’ said Scrooge, in a broken voice, ‘‘ remove
me from this place.”

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have
been,” said the Ghost. ‘ That they are what they are, do
not blame me! ”

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 43

mote Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed. “I cannot bear

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked
upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there
were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled
with it.

“Leaveme! Takeme back. Haunt me no longer! ”

In the struggle—if that can be called a struggle in which
the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary—Scrooge observed
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down
upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it
down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which
streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the
ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by
an irresistible drowsiness! and, further, of being in his own
bed-room. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his
hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before
he sank into a heavy sleep.

STAVE THREE
THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

AwWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore,
and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge
had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the
stroke of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness
in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding
a conference with the second messenger despatched to him
through Jacob Marley’s intervention. But, finding that he
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put
them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For
he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its

44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and
made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume them-
selves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being
usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of
their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good
for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between
which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably
wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without
venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind
calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad
field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a
baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not
by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently,
when the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, he was
taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten
minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came.
All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre
of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the
clock proclaimed the hour; and, which, being only light,
was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless
to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was some-
times apprehensive that he might be at that very moment
an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without
having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however,
he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first;
for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows
what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestion-
ably have done it too—at last, I say, he began to think that
the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the
adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed
to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he
got up sofUy and shuflled in his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He
obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The
walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it
looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 45

little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty
blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction
of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s,
or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on
the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long
wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels
of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth cakes, and seething
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their
delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a
jolly giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in
shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to
shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

“Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. ‘‘ Come in! and
know me better, man! ”

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this
spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and
though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like
to meet them.

**T am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit.
“ Look upon me! ”

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple
deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This
garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious
breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed
by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample
folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it
wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and
there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long
and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open
hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its
joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard;
but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up

with rust. d
“* You have never seen the like of me before! ” exclaimed

the Spirit.

““ Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

“* Have never walked forth with the younger members of
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder
brothers born in these later years? ” pursued the Phantom.

“I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ I am afraid I
have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit? ”

‘

46 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

“ A tremendous family to provide for,” muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

“ Spirit,” said Scrooge, submissively, “‘ conduct me where
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I
learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have
aught to teach me, let me profit by it.”

“Touch my robe!”

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, -
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood
in the city streets on Christmas morning where (for the
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk,
and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from
the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops
of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to
see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting
into artificial little snow storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows
by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that
crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where
the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels,
hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The
sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up
with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier
particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the
chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire,
and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. There
was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and
yet there was an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest
summer air and brightest summer sun might have en-
deavoured to diffuse in vain.

For, the people who were shovelling away on the house-
tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious
snowball—better-natured missile far than many a wordy
jest—laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily
if it went wrong. The poulterers’ shops were still half open,

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 47

and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. There were
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like
the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors,
and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish
onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish
Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness
at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the
hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered
high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes,
made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from
conspicuous hooks that people’s mouths might water gratis
as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown,
recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods,
and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves;
there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off
the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these
choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was
something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round
and round their little world in slow and passionless ex-
citement.

The Grocers! oh, the Grocers! nearly closed, with per-
haps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps
such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending
on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and
roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were
rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the
blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose,
or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the
almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long
and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruit
so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the
coldest lookers on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor
was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French
plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly
decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in
its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried
and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they
tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their

48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the
counter, and came running back to fetch them, and com-
mitted hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour
possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and
fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened
their aprons behind might have been their own, worn out-
side for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck
at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all to church
and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the
streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces.
And at the same time there emerged from scores of by-
streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people,
carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of
these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very
much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a bakers’
doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed
sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it
was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice
when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers
who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on
them from it, and their good humour was restored directly.
For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas
Day. And so it was! God love il, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers’ were shut up;
and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these
dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed
blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement
smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

“Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch? ” asked Scrooge.

“There is. My own.”

“Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?”
asked Scrooge.

“To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

“Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

“ Because it needs it most.”

“ Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “ I
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us,
should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of in-
nocent enjoyment.”

“I!” cried the Spirit.

“You would deprive them of their means of dining every

\

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 49

seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said
to dine at all,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ Wouldn’t you? ”

“JT!” cried the Spirit.

“You seek to close these places on the seventh day? ”
said Scrooge. ‘“ And it comes to the same thing.”

“IT seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

“Forgive me if Iam wrong. It has been done fin your
name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge.

“There are some upon this earth of yours,’ returned
the Spirit, “ who lay claim to know us, and who do their
deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry,
and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and
all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember
that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.’’

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which
Scrooge had observed at the baker’s) that notwithstanding
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was
possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor
men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s ; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinklings of his
torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen “ bob” a-
week himself—he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies
of his Christian name—and yet the Ghost of Christmas
Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence,
and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second
of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob’s
private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour
of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so
gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the

50 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy
and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s
they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and
basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young
Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter
Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his
collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow
potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid
to be Iet out and peeled.

“What has ever got your precious father then?” said
Mrs. Cratchit, “and your brother Tiny Tim! And Martha
warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour! ”

“‘ Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she
spoke. ’

“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young
Cratchits. ‘‘ Hurrah! there’s such a goose, Martha!”

“Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you
are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

“We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied
the girl, ‘and had to clear away this morning, mother.”

“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said
Mrs. Cratchit. ‘* Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and
have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

“No, no! there’s father coming,” cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. ‘‘ Hide, Martha,
hide! ”

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,
with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned
up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his
shoulder, Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and
had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

“Why, where's our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, look-
ing round.

*“Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

“Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in
his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the
way from church, and had come home rampant. ‘ Not
coming upon Christmas Day!”

Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were
only in joke, so she came out prematurely from behind the
closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 51

Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-
house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

“ And how did little Tim behave? ” asked Mrs. Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

“ As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow
he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks
the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming
home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, be-
cause he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to
remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars
walk and blind men see.”

Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and
back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,
escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire;
and while Bob, turning up his cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they
were capable of being made more shabby—compounded
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred
it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer, Master
Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch
the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to
which a black swan was a matter of course—and in truth it
was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit
made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with in-
credible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce;
Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside
him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits
set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into
their mouths lest they should shriek for goose before their
turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on and
grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as
Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife,
prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did,
and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth,
one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even
Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on

52 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried
Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t
believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness
and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it al) at last!
Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits
in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eye-
brows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda,
Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear
witnesses—to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it
should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should
have got over the wall of the backyard and stolen it, while
they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which
the two young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors
were supposed.

Hallo! <A great deal of steam! The pudding was out
of the copper. <A smell like a washing-day! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook’s
next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to
that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs.
Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the
pudding, like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm,
blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and
bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and
calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.
Cratchit said, that now the weight was off her mind, she
would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of
flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a
large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any
Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared,
the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound
in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and
oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts
on fithe re. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 53

hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half
a one, and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display
of glass—two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well
as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out
with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered
and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

“* A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us! ”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“ God bless us every one! ” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father’s side, upon his little
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and
dreaded that he might be taken from him.

“ Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never
felt before, ‘‘ tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“‘T see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “‘ in the poor
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner carefully
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the
Future, the child will die.” ’

**No, no,” said Scrooge. ‘ Oh, no, kind Spirit! say
he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “ will find
him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better
do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

** Man,” said the Ghost, “‘ if man you be in heart, not
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what
men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the
sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live
than millions like this poor man’s child! Oh God! to hear
the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among
his hungry brothers in the dust! ”

Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling
cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily,
on hearing his own name.

“Mr. Scrooge! ” said Bob, “ I'll give you Mr. Scrooge,
the founder of the Feast!”

“The Founder of the Feast, indeed!”’ cried Mrs Cratchit,
reddening. “I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece

54 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good
appetite for it.”

“ My dear,” said Bob, “ the children! Christmas Day.”

“ It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, “ on
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

“‘ My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer. ‘‘ Christmas Day.”

“Y’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,”
said Mrs. Cratchit, ‘“ not for his. <A long life to him! A
merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He'll be very
merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first
of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny
Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it.
Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his
name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dis-
pelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier
than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baneful
being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a
situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in if
obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young
Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being
a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully
at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating
what particular investments he should favour when he came
into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who
was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what
kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she
worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie a-bed to-
morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a
holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a
countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord
‘“was much about as tall as Peter’ ; at which Peter pulled
up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head
if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the
jug went round and round; and by-and-by they had a song,
about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim,
who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were
not a handsome family, they were not well-dressed, their
shoes were far from being waterproof, their clothes were

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 55

scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did,
the inside of the pawnbroker’s. But, they were happy,
grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the
time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the
bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge
had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until
the last.

By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the
streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens,
parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here,
the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy
dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before
the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out
cold and darkness. There, all the children of the house
were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters,
brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet
them. Here again, were shadows on the window-blind of
guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all
hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped
lightly off to some near neighbour’s house; where, woe
upon the single man who saw them enter—artful witches,
well they knew it—in a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how
the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast,
and opened its capacious palm and floated on, outpouring,
with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on
everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who
ran on before dotting the dusky street with specks of light,
and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned
the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas!

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost,
they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous
masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were
the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself where-
soever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost
that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze,
and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun.

56 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desola-
tion for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower,
lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

“‘ What place is this? ” asked Scrooge.

“‘ A place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of
the earth,” returned the Spirit. “‘ But they know me. See!”

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly
they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of
mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled
round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with
their children and their children’s children, and another
generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their hoNday
attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the
howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them
a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was
a boy, and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite
blithe and loud, and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
sank again.

. The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not
to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he
saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind
them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of
water, as it rolled and roared and raged among the dread-
ful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the
earth,

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the
water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men, who watched the light, had
made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone
wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining
their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat,
they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog;
and one of them, the elder too, with his face all damaged and
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
ae be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in it-
‘self.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 57

sea—on, on—until being far away, as he told Scrooge,
from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside
the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the
officers who had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their
several stations; but every man among them hummed a
Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke
below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas
Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every
man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a
kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the
year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and
had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had
known that they delighted to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an un-
known abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as
Death; it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus en-
gaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater
surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s,
and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the
Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same
nephew with approving affability!

“Hal hal” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha,
ha!”

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know
a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all
I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him
to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things,
that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is
nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter
and good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in
this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his
face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge’s niece,
by marriage, laughed as heartily ashe. And their assembled
friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

“Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha! ”

“He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!”
cried Scrooge’s nephew. ‘ He believed it too!’’

“More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece,
indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything
by halves. They are always in earnest.

58 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

She was very pretty, exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,
surprised-looking capital face; a ripe little mouth, that
seemed made to be kissed—as no doubt it was; all kinds of
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever
saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was what
you would have called provoking, you know, but satis-
factory too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

““He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew,
‘‘that’s the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be.
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I
have nothing to say against him.”

‘““T’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s
niece. ‘‘ At least you always tell me so.”

“What of that, my dear?” said Scrooge’s nephew.
“ His wealth is of no use tohim. He don’t do any good with
it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't
the satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha! —that he is ever
going to benefit us with it.”

‘“‘T have no patience with him,”’ observed Scrooge’s
niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies
expressed the same opinion.

“Oh, I have,” said Scrooge’s nephew. ‘‘ I am sorry for
him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers
by his ill-whims? Himself, always. Here, he takes it into
his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us.
What’s the consequence? He don’t lose much of a dinner.’’

““ Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” inter-
rupted Scrooge’s niece. Everybody else said the same,
and they must be allowed to have been competent judges,
because they had just had dinner, and, with the dessert upon
the table, were clustered round the fire by lamplight.

“ Well, Iam very glad to hear it,’”’ said Scrooge’s nephew,
“because I haven't any great faith in these young house-
keepers. What do you say, Topper?”

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s
niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched
outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the
subject. Whereat Scrooge’s nicce’s sister—the plump one
with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses—blushed.

“Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her
hands. “ He never finishes what he begins to say! He is
such a ridiculous fellow! ”

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 59

Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it
was impossible to keep the infection off—though the plump
sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar—his example
was unanimously followed.

“IT was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew,
“that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not
making merry with us, is, as Ithink, that heloses some pleasant
moments, which could do him no harm. Iam sure he loses
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till
he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it. I defy
him. If he finds me going there, in good temper, year
after year, and saying, ‘ Uncle Scrooge, how are you? ’—if
it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty
pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him, yester-
day.”

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shak-
ing Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not
much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at
any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and
passed the bottle joyously.

After tea they hadsome music. For they were a musical
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a
glee or catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face
over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and
played, among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all
the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind;
he softened more and more; and thought that if he could
have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated
the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own
hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried
Jacob Marley.

But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music.
After a while they played at forfeits, for it is good to be
children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas,

60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. Stop!
There was first a game at blind-man’s buff. Of course there
was. And Ino more believe Topper was really blind than I
believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is that it was
a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that
the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went
after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on
the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-
irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the
piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever
she went there went he! He always knew where the plump
sister was. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had
fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he
would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you,
which would have been an affront to your understanding,
and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the
plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and
it really was not. But when at last he caught her; when,
in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings
past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no
escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his
pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was
necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure
himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her
finger, and a certain chain about her neck—was vile,
monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when,
another blind-man being in office, they were so very con-
fidential together, behind the curtains.

Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s buff
party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a
footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge
were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits,
and loved her love to admiration with all the letters
of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When,
and Where, she was very great, and, to the secret joy of
Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow, though they
were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There
might have been twenty people there, young and old, but
they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting
in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice
made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with
his guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too;
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 61

cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he
took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But
this, the Spirit said, could not be done.

“ Here is a new game,” said Scrooge. ‘ One half hour,
Spirit, only one! ”

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge’s nephew
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what,
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked
sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the
streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t led by any-
body, and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed
in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, ora bull,
or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or acat, ora bear. At every
fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into
a fresh roar of laughter, and was so inexpressibly tickled,
that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At
last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

“ Thavefoundit out! Iknow whatitis, Fred! Iknow
what it is! ”

“* What is it? ” cried Fred.

** Tt’s your Uncle Scro-o-0-0-oge! ”’

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to “ Is it
a bear?” ought to have been “ yes’; inasmuch as an answer
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency
that way.

“‘ He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,” said
Fred, “‘ and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the
moment; and I say, ‘ Uncle Scrooge! ”’

** Well! Uncle Scrooge!” they cried.

“A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to the
old man, whatever he is!”’ said Scrooge’s nephew. ‘“ He
wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless.
Uncle Scrooge! ”

62 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and
light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible
speech if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole
scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his
nephew, and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw and far they went, and many homes
they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit
stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign
lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men,
and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty,
andit wasrich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s
every refuge, where vain man, in his little brief authority,
had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he
left his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was along night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays
appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke
of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when,
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,
he noticed that its hair was grey.

** Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

“My life upon this globe is very brief,” replied the
Ghost. ‘ It ends to-night.”

* To-night! ’’ cried Scrooge.

“To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing
near.”

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven
at that moment.

“ Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “ but I see
something strange and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was
the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. ‘* Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe it brought two children:
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!” ex-
claimed the Ghost.

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 63

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.
Where graceful youth should have filled their features out,
and touched them with the freshest tints, a stale and
shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and
twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels
might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out
menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of
humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonder-
ful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown
to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children
but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to
a.lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours? ” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. ‘“ And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girlis Want. Beware of them
both, and all of their degree; but most of all beware of this
boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless
the writing be erased. Deny it! ” cried the Spirit, stretching
out its hand towards the city. ‘‘ Slander those who tell it
ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse!
And bide the end!”

“ Have they no refuge or resource? ” cried Scrooge.

“ Are there no prisons? ” said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. ‘ Are there no work-
houses?”

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld
a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist
along the ground, towards him,

64 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

STAVE FOUR
THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

Tue Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for
in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to
scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which con-
cealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible,
save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have
been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate
it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither
spoke nor moved.

“Tam in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To
Come?” said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not but pointed onward with its
hand.

“You are about to show me shadows of the things that
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,”
Scrooge pursued. “ Is that so, Spirit?” .

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for
an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head,
That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time,
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs
trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly
stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a
moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to
recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the
dusky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap
of black.

“ Ghost of the Future! ” he exclaimed, “ I fear you more
than any spectre Ihave seen. But as I know your purpose

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 65

is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man
from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to
me? ”

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight
before them.

“Lead on!” said Scrooge. ‘‘ Lead on! The night is
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead
on, Spirit! ”’

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him
up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city
rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass
them of its own act. But there they were in the heart of
it; on ’Change, amongst the merchants, who hurried up
and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and
conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and
trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth,
as Scrooge had seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business
men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them,
Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

““No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “ I
don’t know much about it either way. I only know he’s
dead.”

““ When did he die? ” inquired another.

“Last night, I believe.”

“Why, what was the matter with him? ” asked a third,
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.
“T thought he’d never die.”

** God knows,” said the first with a yawn.

“What has he done with his money? ”’ asked a red-faced
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

*©T haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin,
yawning again. “ Left it to his company, perhaps. He
hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.”

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

“It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral,” said the same
speaker; for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to go
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer? ”

“J don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,” observed

12—C

66 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. ‘“ But I
must be fed, if I make one.”

Another laugh.

“Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after
all,” said the first speaker, “‘ for I never wear black gloves,
and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else
will. When I come to think of it, I’m not at all sure that
I wasn’t his most particular friend; for we used to stop
and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!”

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards
the Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking
that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also perfectly. They were men of
business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had
made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in
a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point
of view.

“How are you?” said one.

“How are you?” returned the other.

“ Well!’ said the first. ‘‘ Old Seratch has got his own
at last, hey?”

“So Lam told,” returned the second. ‘ Cold, isn’t it! ”

“ Seasonable for Christmas time. You are not a skater
I suppose? ”

“No. No. Something else to think of. Good morn-
ing!”

Not another word. That was their meeting, their con-
versation and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently
so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some
hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely
tobe. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing
on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past,
and this Ghost’s province was the Future. Nor could he
think of any one immediately connected with himself, to
whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to
whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for
his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every
word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 67

observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he
had an expectation that the conduct of his future self
would give him the clue he missed, and would render the
solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image ;
but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though
the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there,
he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that
poured in through the porch. It gave him little surprise,
however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change
of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolu-
tions carried out in this.

Quiet and dark beside him stood the phantom, with
its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and
feel very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute.
The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses
wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly.
Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged
their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling
streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with
filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-
browed, beetling shop, belowa pent-house roof, where iron, old
rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the
floor within, were piled up, heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains,
hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds,
Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and
hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted
fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares
he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a
grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had
screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy
curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and
smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of
this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into
the shop But she had scarcels entered. when another

68 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely
followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled
by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recogni-
tion of each other. After a short period of blank astonish-
ment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them,
they all three burst into a laugh.

“Let the charwoman alone to be the first!” cried she
who had entered first. ‘‘ Let the laundress alone to be the
second; and let the undertaker’s man alone to be the third.
Look here, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we haven’t all
three met here without meaning it! ”

** You couldn’t have met in a better place,” said old Joe,
removing his pipe from his mouth. ‘‘ Come into the parlour.
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other
two ain’t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.
Ah! how it shrieks! There ain’t such a rusty bit of metal
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I’m sure
there’s no such old bones here as mine. Ha, hal We're
all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. Come into
the parlour. Come into the parlour.”

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags.
The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod,
and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night),
with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken,
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and
looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

“ What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber? ” said the
woman. ‘* Every person has a right to take care of them-
selves. He always did!”

“'That’s true, indeed! ’’ said the laundress. “No man
more so.”

“Why, then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid,
woman; who’s the wiser? We're not going to pick holes
in each other’s coats, I suppose? ”’

““No, indeed,” said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.
“We should hope not.”

“Very well, then!’ cried the woman. ‘ That’s enough.
Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not
a dead man, I suppose.”

“No indeed,” said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

“ If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a wicked

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 69

old screw,” pursued the woman, ‘‘ why wasn’t he natural
in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to
look after him when he was struck with death, instead of
lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”

“It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs.
Dilber. “ It’s a judgment on him.”

“I wish it was a little heavier judgment,” replied the
woman; “ and it should have been, you may depend upon
it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open
that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it.
Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid
for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were
helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It’s no
sin. Open the bundle, Joe.’

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,
produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or
two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and a brooch of
no great value, were all. They were severally examined
and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was
disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them
up into a total when he found that there was nothing more
to come.

“ That’s your account,” said Joe, ‘‘ and I wouldn’t give
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.
Who’s next? ”

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wear-
ing apparel, two old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of
sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on
the wall in the same manner.

“IT always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of
mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself,” said old Joe.
“ That’s your account. If you asked me for another penny
and made it an open question, I’d repent of being so liberal,
and knock off half-a-crown.”

“And now undo my bundle, Joe,’ said the first
woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,
dragged out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff.

“‘ What do you call this? ” said Joe. ‘“‘ Bed-curtains? ”

“ Ah!” returned the woman, laughing and leaning
forward on her crosse¢ arms. ‘‘ Bed-curtains! ”

70 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“You don’t mean to say you took ’em down, rings and
all, with him lying there? ”’ said Joe.

“Yes, I do,” replied the woman; ‘‘ why not? ~

““-You were born to make your fortune,” said Joe, “ and
you'll certainly do it.”

“T certainly shan’t hold my hand, when I can get any-
thing in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as
he was, I promise you, Joe,” returned the woman, coolly.
“Don’t drop that oil upon the blankets now.”

“His blankets? ” asked Joe.

“‘ Who’s else, do you think?” replied the woman. “ He
isn’t likely to take cold without ’em, I dare say.”

“T hope he didn’t die of anything catching? Eh?”
said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

“Don’t you be afraid of that,” returned the woman.
** T ain’t so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for
such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that
shirt till your eyes ache; but you won’t find a hole in it,
nor a threadbare place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one
too. They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.”

“What do you ¢all wasting of it? ”’ asked old Joe.

** Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,” replied
the woman with a laugh. ‘‘ Somebody was fool enough to
do it, but I took it off again. If calico ain’t good enough for
such a purpose it isn’t good enough for anything. It’s
quite as becoming to the body. He can’t look uglier than he
did in that one.”

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they
sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by
the old man’s lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

“Ha, hal” laughed the same woman, when old Joe,
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their
several gains upon the ground. ‘“ This is the end of it,
you see? He frightened every one away from him when he
was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!”

“ Spirit!’ said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot.
“Tsee, L see. The case of this unhappy man might be my
own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven,
what is this! ”

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now
he almost touched a bed: a bare uncurtained bed: on which,

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 71

beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful
language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon
the bed: and on it plundered and bereft, unwatched, un-
wept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the phantom. Its steady
hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly
adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a
finger upon Scrooge’s part, would have disclosed the face.
He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed
to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than
to dismiss the spectre at his side.

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful death, set up thine altar
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy
command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not
that the hand is heavy and will fail down when released;
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand
WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm and
tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike!
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow
the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. Hethought
if this man could be raised up now, what would be his fore-
most thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares?
They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a
woman, or a child, to say he was kind to me in this or that,
and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him.
A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of
gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What ‘hey wanted
in the room of death, and why they were so restless and
disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

“ Spirit! ’ he said, “ this is a fearful place. In leaving
it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us gol”

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the
head.

72 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“TI understand you,” Scrooge returned, “and I would
do it, if Icould. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have
not the power.”

Again it seemed to look upon him.

“Tf there is any person in the town, who feels emotion
caused by this man’s death,” said Scrooge, quite agonised,
‘“‘ show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!”

The phantom spread its dark robe before him for a
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room
by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting someone, and with anxious eager-
ness; for she walked up and down the room; started at
every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the
clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and
could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She
hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose
face was care-worn and depressed, though he was young.
There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of
serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he
struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for
him by the fire, and when she asked him faintly what news
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared em-
barrassed how to answer.

“Ts it good,” she said, “‘ or bad? ’’—to help him.

“ Bad,” he answered.

“We are quite ruined? ”

“No. ‘There is hope yet, Caroline.”

“If he relents,”’ she said, amazed, “ there is! Nothing
is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.”

“He is past relenting,” said her husband. ‘ He is
dead.”

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the
next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion
of her heart.

“What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of
last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain
a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to
avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not
only very ill, but dying then,”

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 73

“To whom will our debt be transferred? ”’

“T don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be
bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts,
Caroline! ”’

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.
The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear
what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a
happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that
the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of
pleasure.

“ Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,”
said Scrooge; ‘‘or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we
left just now, will be for ever present to me.”

The Ghost conducted him through several streets
familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked
here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be
seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house; the
dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and
the children seated round the fire.

Quiet: very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

“* And he took a child, and set him in the midst of
them.’ ”’

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table and put her
hand up to her face.

“The colour hurts my eyes,” she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

““They’re better now again,” said Cratchit’s wife. “ It
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show
weak eyes to your father when he comes home for the
world. It must be near his time.”

“ Past it rather,’ Peter answered, shutting up his book.
“But I think he has walked a little slower than he used
these few last evenings, mother.”

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

74 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“ T have known him walk with—I have known him walk
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast, indeed.”

“And so have J,” cried Peter. ‘“ Often.”

“ And so have I,” exclaimed another. So had all.

“But he was very light to carry,” she resumed, intent
upon her work, “‘ and his father loved him so, that it was no
trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door! ”

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his
comforler—he had need of it, poor fellow—came in. His
tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who
should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits
got upon his knees and laid, each child, a little cheek,
against his face, as if they said ‘“‘ Don’t mind it, father.
Don’t be grieved!”

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly
to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table,
and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the
girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

“Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?” said his
wife.

“Yes, my dear,”’ returned Bob. ‘“ I wish you could have
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a
place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that
I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!”
cried Bob. ‘“ My little child!”

He broke down all at once. He couldn’t help it. If he
could have helped it, he and his child would have been
farther apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room and went upstairs into the room above,
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were
signs of someone having been there lately. Poor Bob sat
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to
what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and
mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary
kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew, whom he had scarcely
seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day,
and seeing that he looked a little—* just a little down, you
know,” said Bob, enquired what had happened to distress
him. “On which,” said Bob, ‘‘ for he is the pleasantest-
spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ‘Iam heartily

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 75

sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said, ‘ and heartily sorry for
your good wife.” By the bye, how he ever knew that, |
don’t know.”

“ Knew what, my dear? ”

“ Why, that you were a good wife,” replied Bob.

“ Everybody knows that,” said Peter.

“Very well observed, my boy!” cried Bob. ‘ I hope
they do. ‘ Heartily sorry,’ he said, ‘for your good wife.
If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving
me his card, ‘that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’
Now, it wasn’t,” cried Bob, “ for the sake of anything he
might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that
this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had
known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.”

“Tm sure he’s a good soul! ”’ said Mrs. Cratchit.

“ You would be sure of it, my dear,’”’ returned Bob, “ if
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised
—mark what I say!—if he got Peter a better situation.”

“ Only hear that, Peter,’ said Mrs. Cratchit

“And then,’ cried one of the girls, ‘ Peter will be
keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.”

“Get along with you! ” retorted Peter, grinning.

“Tt’s just as likely as not,’’ said Bob, “ one of these
days; though there’s plenty of time for that, my dear.
But however and whenever we part from one another, |
am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim—shall we
—or this first parting that there was among us?”

*‘ Never, father! ” cried they all.

‘And I know,’’ said Bob, “I know, my dears, that
when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; al-
though he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel
easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing
eg

= “No, never, father!” they all cried again.

“T am very happy,” said little Bob; ‘I am very
happy!”

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from
God!

“Spectre,” said Scrooge, ‘‘ something informs me that
our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not

how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?”

76 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him,
as before—though at a different time, he thought: indeed,
there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they
were in the Future—into the resorts of business men, but
showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay
for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now
desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

“This court,” said Scrooge, ‘‘ through which we hurry
now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for
a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I
shall be in days to come! ”’

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

“The house is yonder,’’ Scrooge exclaimed. ‘‘ Why
do you point away?”

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office and looked
in. It was an oflice still, but not his. The furniture was
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.
The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.
He paused to look round before entering.

A churehyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose
name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. Itwas
a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and
weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life; choked
up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite.
A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom
was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new
meaning in its solemn shape.

“ Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,”
said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the»
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of |
the things that May be, only? ”’

Sul the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which
it stood.

““Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which
if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. ‘ But if
the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it
is thus with what you show me!”

TheSpirit was immovable as ever.

THE END OF IT =

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected
grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

““Am J that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried,
upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back
again.

“No, Spirit! “Oh, no, no! ”

The finger still was there.

“ Spirit! ”’ he cried, tight clutching at his robe, “ hear
me! Iam not the man I was. I will not be the man I
must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me
this, if I am past all hope! ”

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

“ Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he
fell before it: ‘‘ Your nature intercedes for me, and pities
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you
have shown me, by an altered life! ’”’

The kind hand trembled.

“YT will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep
it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.
I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me
I may sponge away the writing on this stone! ”

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought
to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained
it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and
dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a
bed-post.

STAVE FIVE
THE END OF IT

Yrs! and the bed-post was his own. The bed was his own,
the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time
before him was his own, to make amends in!

“‘T will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! ”’
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “ The
Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob

78 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for
this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good in-
tentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to
his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict
with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

“ They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of
his bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down,
rings and all. They are here—I am here—the shadows
of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They
will be. I know they will!”

His hands were busy with his garments all this time;
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down,
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every
kind of extravagance.

“* T don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoén
of himself with his stockings. ‘‘ I am as light as a feather,
I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy.
I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to
everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo
here! Whoop! Hallo!”

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now stand-
ing there: perfectly winded.

“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.
“ There’s the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley
entered! ‘There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas
Present sat! There’s the window where I saw the wander-
ing Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened.
Ha, ha hal ”

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.
The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

“ IT don’t know what day of the month it is,” said Scrooge.
“I don’t know how long I have been among the Spirits.
I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind.
I don’t care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!
Hallo here! ”’

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,
hammer; ding, dong, bell, Bell, dong, ding; hammer,
clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

THE END OF IT 79

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;
Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious!
Glorious!

“ What’s to-day?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to
a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look
about him.

“ Ex?” returned the boy with all his might of wonder.

“ What’s to-day, my fine fellow? ” said Scrooge.

“To-day!” replied the boy. ‘‘ Why, Curistmas Day.”

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I
haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow! ”

“ Hallo! ”’ returned the boy.

“Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but
one, at the corner? ”’ Scrooge inquired.

“ T should hope I did,” replied the lad.

“ An intelligent boy!’”’ said Scrooge. ‘A remarkable
boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey
that was hanging up there?—Not the little prize Turkey:
the big one? ”’

““ What, the one as big as me? ”’ returned the boy.

“What a delightful boy!’ said Scrooge. “It’s a
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”

* Tt’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

“Ts it?” said Scrooge. ‘ Go and buy it.”

““ Walk-ER!”’ exclaimed the boy.

““ No, no,” said Scrooge, ‘“‘ Iam in earnest. Go and buy
it, and tell ’em to bring it here, that I may give them the
directions where to take it. Come back with the man,
and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less
than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a-crown! ”

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so
fast.

“ Pl send it to Bob Cratchit’s,’’ whispered Scrooge, rub-
bing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He shan’t
know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be!”’

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady
one; but write it he did, somehow, and went down stairs

80 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker
caught his eye.

“ T shall love it as long as I live! ” cried Scrooge, patting
it with his hand. ‘I scarcely ever looked at it before.
What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonder-
ful knocker!—Here’s the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How
are you! Merry Christmas!”

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his
legs, that bird. He would have snapped ’em short off in
a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

“Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,”
said Scrooge. ‘‘ You must have a cab.”

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he
paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which
he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till
he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even
when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had
cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of
sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself “ all in his best,” and at last got out
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring
forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas
Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge
regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so
irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-
humoured fellows said ‘ Good-morning, sir! A merry
Christmas to youl’? And Scrooge said often afterwards,
that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were
the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his
counting-house the day before, and said, ‘“ Scrooge and
Marley's, I believe?’ It sent a pang across his heart to
think how this old gentleman would look upon him when
they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him,
and he took it.

‘My dear sir,’ said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and
taking the old gentleman by both his hands. “ How do

THE END OF IT 81

you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very
kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir! ”’

“Mr. Scrooge? ”

“Yes,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ That is my name, and I fear
it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.
And will you have the goodness ”—here Scrooge whispered
in his ear.

“ Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his breath
were taken away. ‘‘ My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious? ”’

“Tf you please,” said Scrooge. ‘“ Not a farthing less.
A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure
you. Will you do me that favour? ”

“My dear sir,”’ said the other, shaking hands with him.
“ T don’t know what to say to such munifi i

“ Don’t say anything, please,” retorted Scrooge. ‘‘ Come
and see me. Will you come and see me? ”

“I will! ” cried the old gentleman; and it was clear he
meant to do it.

“ Thank’ee,” said Scrooge. ‘‘ 1am much obliged to you.
I thank you fifty times. Bless you! ”

He went to church, and walked about the streets and
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the
children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked
down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows;
and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He
had never dreamed that any walk—that anything could
give him so much happiness. In the afternoon, he turned
his steps towards his nephew’s house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the
courage to goup andknock. But he made a dash and did it.

“Ts your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to
the girl. Nice girl! Very.

AONE SIT. -

“Where is he, my love? ” said Scrooge.

“ He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress.
I'll show you up stairs, if you please.”

“Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge with his hand
already on the dining-room lock. “‘ I’ll goin here, my dear.”

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the
door. They were looking at the table (which was spread
out in great array); for these young housckeepers are
always nervous on such points, and like to see that every-

thing is right.

82 A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“Fred! ”’ said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in
the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn’t have done it,
on any account.

““ Why, bless my soul! ” cried Fred, “‘ who’s that? ”

“It’s I. Your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.
Will you let me in, Fred? ”

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off.
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh he
was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch
Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set
his heart upon.

And he did it; yes he did! The clock struck nine. No
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

* Hallo! ’’ growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice
as near as he could feign it. ‘‘ What do you mean by
coming here at this time of day?”

“Tam very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my
time.”

“You are!’’ repeated Scrooge. ‘‘ Yes, I think you are.
Step this way, sir, if you please.”

“ IUs only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing
from the Tank. ‘‘ It shall not be repeated. I was making
rather merry yesterday, sir.”

“Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,’’ said Scrooge, ‘“ I
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And
therefore,”’ he continued, leaping from his stool and giving
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into
the Tank again: ‘and therefore I am about to raise your
salary! ”’

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,

THE END OF IT 83

holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help
and a strait-waistcoat.

“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an
- earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on
the back. ‘A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow,
than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your
salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we
will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a Christmas
bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy
another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit! ”’

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did Nor die, he was
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or
any other good old city, town or borough, in the good old
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this
globe for good, at which some people did not have their
fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as
these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well
that they should wrinkle up the eyes in grins, as have the
malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed:
and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived
upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterwards;
and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep
Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as ‘Tiny
Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

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THE CHIMES

A GOBLIN STORY
OF

SOME BELLS THAT RANG AN OLD
YEAR OUT AND A NEW YEAR IN

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Wiha AaMi
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STS Slide 2

9 Pos
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néey oe & ted CoD 128°

THE CHIMES

FIRST QUARTER

THERF are not many people—and as it is desirable that a
story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual
understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed
that I confine this observation neither to young people nor
to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people,
little and big, young and old; yet growing up, or already
growing down again—there are not, I say, many people
who would care to sleep in a church. I don’t mean at
sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing has actually
been done, once or twice), but in the night and alone. A
great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I
know, by this position in the broad bold Day. But it applies
to Night. It must be argued by night. And I will under-
take to maintain it successfully on any gusty winter’s night
appointed for the purpose, with any one opponent chosen
from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard,
before an old church door, and will previously empower me
to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.
For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering
round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as
it goes; and of trying with its unseen hand the windows
and the doors, and seeking out some crevices by which to
enter. And whenithas got in, as one not finding what it seeks,
whatever that may be, it wails and howls to issue forth
again; and not content with stalking through the aisles,
and gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the
deep organ, soars up to the roof and strives to rend the
rafters, then flings itself despairingly upon the stones
below, and passes muttering into the vaults. Anon it
comes up stealthily, and creeps along the walls, seeming to
read in whispers the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At
some of these it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter, and at
others moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a
87

88 THE CHIMES

ghostly sound too, lingering within the altar, where it seems
to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done and
false gods worshipped, in defiance of the Tables of the Law,
which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken.
Ugh! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire!
It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a
church!

But high up in the steeple! There the foul blast roars
and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to
come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, and
to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl
the groaning weathercock, and make the very tower shake
and shiver! High up in the steeple where the belfry is,
and iron rails are ragged with rust, and sheets of lead and
copper, shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and
heave beneath the unaccustomed tread; and birds stuff
shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams;
and dust grows old and grey; and speckled spiders, indolent
and fat with long security, swing idly to and fro in the
vibration of the bells, and never loose their hold upon their
thread-spun castles in the air, or climb up sailor-like in
quick alarm, or drop upon the ground and ply a score of
nimble legs to save a life! High up in the steeple of an old
church, far above the light and murmur of the town and far
below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and
dreary place at night; and high up in the steeple of an old
church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of.

They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago, these
Bells had been baptised by bishops; so many centuries ago
that the register of their baptism was lost, long long before
the memory of man, and no one knew their names. They
had had their Godfathers and Godmothers, these Bells
(for my own part, by the way, I would rather incur the
responsibility of being Godfather to a Bell than a Boy);
and had had their silver mugs no doubt besides. But Time
had mowed down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth had
melted down their mugs, and they now hung, nameless and
mugless, in the church tower.

Not speechless though. Far from it. They had clear,
loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these Bells; and far and
wide they might be heard upon the wind. Much too sturdy
Chimes were they, to be dependent on the pleasure of the
wind moreover; for, fighting gallantly against it when it

FIRST QUARTER | 89

took an adverse whim, they would pour their cheerful notes
into a listening ear right royally; and bent on being heard
on stormy nights by some poor mother watching a sick
child, or some lone wife whose husband was at sea, they
had been sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor’-
Wester—aye, “‘ all to fits,” as Toby Veck said; for though
they chose to call him Trotty Veck, his name was Toby,
and nobody could make it anything else either (except
Tobias) without a special act of parliament, he having been
as lawfully christened in his day as the bells had been in
theirs, though with not quite so much of solemnity or public
rejoicing.

For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck’s belief, for
I am sure he had opportunities enough of forming a correct
one. And whatever Toby Veck said, I say. And I take
my stand by Toby Veck, although he did stand all day long
(and weary work it was) just outside the church-door.
In fact he was a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, and waited there
for jobs.

And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed,
stony-toed, tooth-chattering place it was to wait in in the
winter time, as Toby Veck well knew. The wind came
tearing round the corner—especially the east wind—as if
it had sallied forth express from the confines of the earth to
have a blow at Toby. And oftentimes it seemed to come
upon him sooner than it had expected, for bouncing round
the corner and passing Toby, it would suddenly wheel round
again as if it cried, ‘‘ Why, here he is!’”” Incontinently his
little white apron would be caught up over his head like a
naughty boy’s garments, and his feeble little cane would
be seen to wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand,
and his legs would undergo tremendous agitation, and ‘Toby
himself all aslant, and facing now in this direction, now in
that, would be so banged and buffeted, and touzled, and
worried, and hustled, and lifted off his feet, as to render it a
state of things but one degree removed from a positive
miracle, that he wasn’t carried up bodily into the air as a
colony of frogs or snails or other portable creatures some-
times are, and rained down again to the great astonishment
of the natives, on some strange corner of the world where
ticket-porters are unknown.

But windy weather, in spite of its using him so roughly,
was after all, a sort of holiday for Toby. ‘That’s the fact.

90 THE CHIMES

He didn’t seem to wait so long for a sixpence in the wind as
at other times; for the having to fight with that boisterous
element took off his attention, and quite freshened him up
when he was getting hungry and low-spirited. A hard
frost too, or a fall of snow was an Event; andit seemed to do
him good, somehow or other—it would have been hard to
say in what respect though, Toby! So wind and frost
and snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were
Toby Veck’s red-letter days.

Wet weather was the worst; the cold, damp, clammy
wet, that wrapped him up like a moist great-coat, the only
kind of great-coat Toby owned, or could have added to his
comfort by dispensing with. Wet days, when the rain
came slowly, thickly, obstinately down; when the street’s
throat, like his own, was choked with mist; when smoking
umbrellas passed and re-passed, spinning round and round
like so many teetotums, as they knocked against each
other on the crowded footway, throwing off a little whirl-
pool of uncomfortable sprinklings; when gutters brawled
and water-spouts were full and noisy; when the wet from
the projecting stones and ledges of the church fell drip,
drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw on which he
stood mere mud inno time; those were the days that tried
him. ‘Then, indeed, you might see Toby looking anxiously
out from his shelter in an angle of the church wall—such a
meagre shelter that in summer time it never cast a shadow
thicker than a good-sized walking-stick upon the sunny
pavement—with a disconsolate and lengthened face. But
coming out, a minute afterwards, to warm himself by ex-
ercise; and trotting up and down some dozen times, he
would brighten even then, and go back more brightly to his
niche.

They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant
speed if it didn’t make it. He could have walked faster
perhaps; most likely, but rob him of his trot, and Toby
would have taken to his bed and died. It bespattered him
with mud in dirty weather; it cost him a world of trouble;
he could have walked with infinitely greater ease; but that
was one reason for his clinging to it so tenaciously. A
weak, small, spare old man, he was a very Hercules,
this Toby, in his good intentions. He loved to earn his
money. He delighted to believe—Toby was very poor,
and couldn’t well afford to part with a delight—that he

FIRST QUARTER 91

was worth his salt. With a shilling or an eighteenpenny
message or small parcel in hand, his courage, always
high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he would call out to
fast Postmen ahead of him, to get out of the way, devoutly
believing that in the natural course of things he must in-
evitably overtake and run them down; and he had perfect
faith—not often tested—in his being able to carry anything
that man could lift.

Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm him-
self on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky
shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire; and
blowing on his chilly hands, and rubbing them against each
other, poorly defended from the searching cold by thread-
bare mufflers of grey worsted, with a private apartment
only for the thumb and a common room or tap for the rest
of the fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane
beneath his arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road
to look up at the belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby
trotted still.

He made this last excursion several times a day, for they
were company to him; and when he heard their voices, he
had an interest in glancing at their lodging-place, and
thinking how they were moved, and what hammers beat
upon them. Perhaps he was the more curious about these
Bells, because there were points of resemblance between
themselves and him. They hung there in all weathers:
with the wind and rain driving in upon them: facing only
the outsides of all those houses; never getting any nearer
to the blazing fires that gleamed and shone upon the
windows, or came puffing out of the chimney tops; and
incapable of participation in any of the good things that
were constantly being handed, through the street doors and
the area railings, to prodigious cooks. Faces came and
went at many windows: sometimes pretty faces, youthful
faces, pleasant faces: sometimes the reverse. But Toby
knew no more (though he often speculated on these trifles,
standing idle in the streets) whence they came, or where
they went, or whether, when the lips moved, one kind word
was Said of him in all the year than did the Chimes them-
selves.

Toby was not a casuist—that he knew of, at least—and
I don’t mean to say that when he began to take to the Bells,
and to knit up his first rough acquaintance with them into

92 THE CHIMES

something of a closer and more delicate woof, he passed
through these considerations one by one, or held any formal
review or great field-day in his thoughts. But what I mean
to say, and do say, is, that as the functions of Toby’s body,
his digestive organs for example, did of their own cunning,
and by a great many operations, of which he was altogether
ignorant, and the knowledge of which would have astonished
him very much, arrive at a certain end; so his mental
faculties, without his privity or concurrence, set all these
wheels and springs in motion, with a thousand others, when
they worked to bring about his liking for the Bells.

And though I had said his love, I would not have recalled
the word, though it would scarcely have expressed his com-
plicated feeling. For, being but a simple man, he invested
them with a strange and solemn character. They were so
mysterious, often heard and never seen; so high up, so far
off, so full of such a deep strong melody, that he regarded
them with a species of awe; and sometimes when he looked
up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half ex-
pected to be beckoned to by something which was not a Bell,
and yet was what he heard so often sounding in the Chimes.
For all this, Toby scouted with indignation a certain flying
rumour that the Chimes were haunted, as implying the
possibility of their being connected with any Evil thing.
In short, they were very often in his ears, and very often in
his thoughts, but always in his good opinion; and he very
often got such a crick in his neck by staring, with his mouth
wide open, at the steeple where they hung, that he was fain
to take an extra trot or two afterwards to cure it.

The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold day,
when the last drowsy sound of Twelve o’clock just struck,
was humming like a melodious monster of a Bee, and not by
any means a busy Bee, all through the steeple. }

“ Dinner-time, eh!” said Toby, trotting up and down
before the church. ‘ Ah!”

Toby’s nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red,
and he winked very much, and his shoulders were very near
his ears, and his legs were very stiff; and altogether he was
evidently a long way upon the frosty side of cool.

“ Dinner-time, eh!” repeated Toby, using his right
hand mutter like an infantine boxing-glove, and punishing
his chest for being cold. ‘* Ah-h-h-h! ”

He Look a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two.

FIRST QUARTER 93

“ There’s nothing,” said Toby, breaking forth afresh—
but here he stopped short in his trot, and with a face of
great interest and some alarm, felt his nose carefully all the
way up. It was but a little way—not being much of a nose
—and he had soon finished.

“J thought it was gone,” said Toby, trotting off again.
“It’s all right, however. I am sure I couldn’t blame it
if it was to go. It has a precious hard service of it in the
bitter weather, and precious little to look forward to: for I
don’t take snuff myself. It’s a good deal tried, poor creetur,
at the best of times; for when it does get hold of a pleasant
whiff or so (which an’t too often), it’s generally from some-
body else’s dinner, a-coming home from the baker’s.”

The reflection reminded him of that other reflection,
which he had left unfinished.

“There’s nothing,” said Toby, “ more regular in its
coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less
regular in its coming round than dinner. That’s the great
difference between ’em. It’s took me a long time to find
it out. I wonder whether it would be worth any gentle-
man’s while, now, to buy that obserwation for the Papers;
or the Parliament! ”

Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head in
self-depreciation.

‘“Why! Lord!” said Toby. ‘‘ The Papers is full of
obserwations as it is; and so’s the Parliament. Here’s
last week’s paper, now;” taking a very dirty one from his
pocket, and holding it from him at arm’s length; “ full of
obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like to know the
news as well as any man,” said Toby, slowly, folding it a
little smaller, and putting it in his pocket again; ‘“‘ but it
almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper now.
It frightens me, almost. I don’t know what we poor people
are coming to. Lord send we may be coming to something
better in the New Year nigh upon us! ”’

“‘ Why, father, father! ”’ said a pleasant voice, hard by.

But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards
and forwards, musing as he went, and talking to himself.

“Tt seems as if we can’t go right, or do right, or be
righted,” said Toby. “I hadn’t much schooling myself
when I was young, and I can’t make out whether we have
any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes
I think we must have a little, and sometimes TI think we

94 THE CHIMES

must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am
not even able to make up my mind whether there is any
good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to
do dreadful things! we seem to give a deal of trouble; we
are always being complained of and guarded against. One
way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!”
said Toby, mournfully, “‘ I can bear up as well as another
man at most times; better than a good many, for I am as
strong as a lion, and all men an’t; but supposing it should
really be that we have no right to a New Year—supposing
we really are intruding ,

“‘ Why, father, father! ’”’ said the pleasant voice again.

Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and shorten-
ing his sight, which had been directed a long way off as
seeking for enlightenment in the very heart of the approach-
ing year, found himself face to face with his own child, and
looking close into her eyes.

Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world
of looking in before their depth was fathomed. Dark eyes,
that reflected back the eyes which searched them; not
flashingly, or at the owner’s will, but with a clear, calm,
honest, patient radiance, claiming kindred with that light
which Heaven called into being. Eyes that were beautiful
and true, and beaming with hope; with Hope so young and
fresh; with Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite
the twenty years of work and poverty on which they had
looked; that they became a voice to Trotty Veck, and said:
“T think we have some business here—a little! ”’

Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and squeezed
the blooming face between his hands.

“Why, Pet,’’ said Trotty. ‘‘ What’s to-do? I didn’t
expect you to-day, Meg.”

“ Neither did I expect to come, father,’’ cried the girl,
nodding her head and smiling as she spoke. ‘‘ But here I
am! And not alone; not alone!”

“Why, you don’t mean to say,’ observed Trotty,
looking curiously at a covered basket which she carried in
her hand, “ that you Pa

“Smell it, father dear,”’ said Meg. “‘ Only smell it! ”

Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great
hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand.

““No, no, no,’ said Meg, with the glee of a child.
“Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the corner:

FIRST QUARTER 95

just the lit-tle tiny cor-ner, you know,” said Meg, suiting
the action to the word with the utmost gentleness, and
speaking very softly, as if she were afraid of being overheard
by something inside the basket; “there. Now. What’s
that? ”

Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the
basket, and cried out in a rapture:

“Why, it’s hot! ”

“It’s burning hot!” cried Meg. ‘Ha, ha, ha! It’s
scalding hot.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared Toby, with a sort of kick. ‘“ It’s
scalding hot.”

“But what is it, father?’ said Meg. ‘‘Come! You
haven’t guessed what it is. And you must guess what it
is. I can’t think of taking it out till you guess what it is.
Don’t be in such a hurry! Wait a minute! A little bit
more of the cover. Now guess! ”

Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too
soon! shrinking away as she held the basket towards him;
curling up her pretty shoulders; stopping her ear with her
hand, as if by so doing she could keep the right word out of
Toby’s lips; and laughing softly the whole time.

Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent
down his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration at
the lid; the grin upon his withered face expanding in the
process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas.

“Ah! It’s very nice,” said Toby. ‘‘ It an’t—I suppose
it an’t Polonies? ”

“No, no, no!” cried Meg, delighted. ‘ Nothing like
Polonies! ”

“No,” said Toby, after another sniff. ‘‘ It’s—it’s
mellower than Polonies. It’s very nice. It improves
every moment. It’s too decided for Trotters. An’t it?”

Meg was in an ecstasy. He could not have gone wider
of the mark than trotters—except Polonies.

“‘ Liver ” said Toby, communing with himself. ‘ No.
There’s a mildness about it that don’t answer to liver.
Pettitoes! No. It an’t faint enough for pettitoes. It
wants the stringiness of Cocks’ heads. And I know it an’t
sausages. I'll tell you what it is. It’s chitterlings!”

“No, it an’t,” cried Meg, in a burst of delight. ‘‘ No,
it an’t!’”’

“ Why, what am Ia thinking of! ” said Toby, suddenly

96 THE CHIMES

recovering a position as near the perpendicular as it was
possible for him to assume. “‘ I shall forget my own name
next. It’s tripe!”

Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should
say, in half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever
stewed.

“‘ And so,” said Meg, busying herself exultingly with the
basket, “ I'll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have
brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket
handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for once, and spread
that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there’s no law to prevent
me; is there, father? ”’

“Not that I know of, my dear,” said Toby. “ But
they’re always a bringing up some new law or other.”’

“ And according to what I was reading you in the paper
the other day, father; what the Judge said, you know;
we poor people are supposed to know them all. Ha, hal
What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever they think
us!”

““Yes, my dear,” cried Trotty; “ and they’d be very
fond of any one of us that did know ’em all. He’d grow
fat upon the work he’d get, that man, and be popular with
the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood. Very much so!”

** He'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was,
if it smelt like this,” said Meg, cheerfully. ‘‘ Make haste,
for there’s a hot potato besides, and half a pint of fresh
drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you dine, father? On
the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, dear, how grand we are.
Two places to choose from!”

“The steps to-day, my Pet,” said Trotty. “ Steps in
dry weather. Post in wet. There’s a greater conveniency
in the steps at all times, because of the sitting down; but
they’re rheumatic in the damp.”

“Then here,’ said Meg, clapping her hands, after a
moment’s bustle; ‘‘ here it is, all ready! And beautiful
it looks! Come, father. Come!”

Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, Trotty
had been standing looking at her—and had been speaking
too—in an abstracted manner, which showed that though
she was the object of his thoughts and eyes, to the ex-
clusion even of tripe, he neither saw nor thought about her
as she was at that moment, but had before him some
imaginary rough sketch or drama of her future life. Roused

FIRST QUARTER 97

now, by her cheerful summons, he shook off a melancholy
shake of the head which was just coming upon him, and
trotted to her side. As he was stooping to sit down, the
Chimes rang.

“Amen!” said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking
up towards them.

“Amen to the Bells, father? ”’ cried Meg.

“They broke in like a grace, my dear,’ said Trotty,
taking his seat. ‘‘ They’d say a good one, I am sure, if
they could. Many’s the kind thing they say to me.”

“The Bells do, father! ’’ laughed Meg, as she set the
basin and a knife and fork before him. ‘ Well! ”

“Seem to, my Pet,” said Trotty, falling to with great
vigour. ‘And where’s the difference? If I hear ’em,
what does it matter whether they speak it or not? Why
bless you, my dear,’’ said Toby, pointing at the tower with
his fork, and becoming more animated under the influence
of dinner, “‘ how often have I heard them bells say, ‘ Toby
Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby! Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!’ A million times?
More! ”’

“Well, I never! ” cried Meg.

She had, though—over and over again. For it was
Toby’s constant topic.

“ When things is very bad,” said Trotty; “ very bad
indeed, Imean; almost at the worst; thenit’s ‘ Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby
Veck, job coming soon, Toby!’ that way.”

“« And it comes—at last, father,’’ said Meg, with a touch
of sadness in her pleasant voice.

“« Always,”’ answered the unconscious Toby. ‘“‘ Never
fails.’”’

While this discourse was holding Trotty made no pause
in his attack upon the savoury meat before him, but cut and
ate, and cut and drank, and cut and chewed and dodged
about, from tripe to hot potato, and from hot potato back
again to tripe, with an unctuous and unflagging relish.
But happening now to look all round the street—in case
anybody should be beckoning from any door or window
for a porter—his eyes, in coming back again, encountered
Meg, sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded: and only
busy in watching his progress with a smile of happiness.

“Why, Lord forgive me!” said Trotty, dropping his

I12—D

98 THE CHIMES

knife and fork. ‘My dove! Meg! why didn’t you tell me
what a beast I was?”

** Father? ”

“Sitting here,’ said Trotty, in penitent explanation,
“cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you
before me there, never so much as breaking your precious
fast, nor wanting to, when ?

“But I have broken it, father,” interposed his daughter
laughing, ‘‘ all to bits. I have had my dinner.”

““ Nonsense,”’ said Trotty. ‘‘ Two dinners in one day!
It an’t possible! You might as well tell me that two New
Year’s Days will come together, or that I have had a gold
head all my life, and never changed it.”

‘‘T have had my dinner, father, for all that,’”’ said Meg,
coming nearer tohim. ‘ And if you'll go on with yours, I'll
tell you how and where; and how your dinner came to be
brought; and—and something else besides.”

Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into
his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon
his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the meal
was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork again,
and went to work: but much more slowly than before,
and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with
himself.

“IT had my dinner, father,’’ said Meg, after a little
hesitation, ‘“ with—with Richard. His dinner-time was
early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he
came to see me, we—we had it together, father.”

Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. ‘Then he
said, ‘“* Oh! because she waited.

“And Richard says, father—’’ Meg resumed. Then
stopped.

* What does Richard say, Meg?" asked Toby.

* Richard says, father Another stoppage.

“ Tichard’s a long time saying it,” said Toby.

“He says then, father,” Meg continued, lifting up her
eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly;
“another year is nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting
on from year to year, when it is so unlikely we shall ever be
better off than we are now? He says we are poor now,
father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now,
and years will make us old before we know it. He says that
if we wail: people in our condition: until we see our way

FIRST QUARTER 99

quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed—the
common way—the Grave, father.”

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn
upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his
peace.

“ And how hard, father, to grow old and die, and think
we might have cheered and helped each other! How hard
in all our lives to love each other! and to grieve apart to see
each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even
if I got the better of it, and forgot him (which I never could)
oh father dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is
now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,
without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman’s
life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me better! ”’

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more
gaily, that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob,
and here a laugh and sob together:

“So Richard says, father, as his work was yesterday
made certain for some time to come, and as I love him and
have loved him full three years—ah! longer than that, if
he knew it!—will I marry him on New Year’s Day; the best
and happiest day, he says, in the whole year, and one that is
almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It’s a short
notice, father—isn’t it?—but I haven’t my fortune to be
setlled, or my wedding dresses to be made, lixe the great
ladies, father—have I? And he said so much, and said it
in his way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind
and gentle, that I said I’d come and talk to you, father.
And as they paid the money for that work of mine this
morning (unexpectedly, I am sure!), and as you have fared
very poorly for a whole week, and as I couldn’t help wishing
there should be something to make this day a sort of holiday
to you as well as a dear and happy day to me, father, I made
a little treat and brought it to surprise you.”’

“And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!” said
another voice.

It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come
upon them unobserved, and stood before the father and
daughter, looking down upon them with a face as glowing
as the iron on which his stout sledge-hanimer daily rung.
A handsome, well-made, powerful youngster he was, with
eyes that sparkled like the red-hot droppings from a furnace
fire, black hair that curled about his swarthy temples

100 THE CHIMES

rarely; and a smile—a smile that bore out Meg’s eulogium
on his style of conversation.

“ See how he leaves it cooling on the step! ”’ said Richard.
“Meg don’t know what he likes. Not she!”

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached
up his hand to Richard, and was going to address him in a
great hurry, when the house-door opened without any
warning, and a footman very nearly put his foot in the tripe.

“Out of the vays, here, will you! You must always
go and be a settin’ on our steps, must you! You can’t
go and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can’t
you! Will you clear the road or won’t you?”

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as
they had already done it.

‘““What’s the matter, what’s the matter!” said the
gentleman for whom the door was opened, coming out of
the house at that kind of light-heavy pace—that peculiar
compromise between a walk and a jog-trot—with which
a gentleman upon the smooth downhill of life, wearing
creaking boots, a watch-chain and clean linen, may come
out of his house: not only without any abatement of his
dignity, but with an expression of having important and
wealthy engagements elsewhere. ‘‘ What’s the matter.
What's the matter! ”

* You’re always a being begged and prayed wpon your
bended knees you are,”’ said the footman with great emphasis
to ‘Trotty Veck, ‘“ to let our doorsteps be. Why don’t you
Iet ’em be? CAan’r you let ’em be?”

“There! That'll do, that’ll do!” said the gentleman.
““Halloa there! Porter?” beekoning with his head to
Trotty Veck. ‘‘Comehere. What's that? Your dinner? ”’

“Yes, sir,’ said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a
corner.

“Don't leave it there,’ exclaimed the gentleman.
“ Bring it here, bring it here. So! This is your dinner,
1s It? *?

“Yes, Sir,” repeated Trotty, looking with a fixed eye
and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved
for a last delicious tit-bit; which the gentleman was now
turning over and over on the end of the fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One
was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre
habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands con-

FIRST QUARTER 101

tinually in the pockets of his seanty pepper-and-salt trousers,
very large and dog’s-eared from that custom; and was not
particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full-
sized, sleek, well conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with
bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a
very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his
body were squeezed up into his head; which perhaps ac-
counted for his having also the appearance of being rather
cold about the heart.

He who had Toby’s meat upon the fork, called to the
first one by the name of Filer; and they both drew near
together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly short-sighted, was
obliged to go so close to the remnant of Toby’s dinner
before he could make out what it was, that Toby’s heart
leaped up into his mouth. But Mr. Filer didn’t eat it.

“ This is a description of animal food, Alderman,” said
Filer, making little punches in it with a pencil-case, “‘ com-
monly known to the labouring population of this country,
by the name of tripe.”

The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a
merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too!
A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be imposed
upon. Deep in the people’s hearts! He knew them, Cute
did. I believe you!

“But who eats tripe?” said Mr. Filer, looking round.
“Tripe is without an exception the least economical, and
the most wasteful article of consumption that the markets
of this country can by possibility produce. ‘The loss upon
a pound of tripe has been found to be, in the boiling, seven-
eighths of a fifth more than the loss upon a pound of any
other animal substance whatever. ‘Tripe is more expensive,
properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. Taking
into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly
within the bills of mortality alone, and forming a low
estimate of the quantity of tripe which the carcases of those
animals, reasonably well butchered, would yield; I find
that the waste on that amount of tripe, if boiled, would
victual a garrison of five hundred men for five months of
thirty-one days each, and a February over. The Waste,
the Waste! ”

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He
seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men

with his own hand.

102 THE CHIMES

“Who eats tripe?” said Mr. Filer, warmly. ‘ Who
eats tripe? ”

Trotty made a miserable bow.

“ You do, do you? ” said Mr. Filer. “ Then I'll tell you
something. You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of the
mouths of widows and orphans.”

‘‘ T hope not, Sir,” said Trotty, faintly. ‘* I'd sooner die
of want!”

“ Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alder-
man,” said Mr. Filer, ‘‘ by the estimated number of existing
widows and orphans, and the result will be one pennyweight
of tripe to each. Not a grain is left for that man. Con-
quently, he’s a robber.”

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to
see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief
to get rid of it, anyhow.

“And what do you say? ”’ asked the Alderman jocosely,
of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat. ‘‘ You have
heard friend Filer. What do you say?”

*“ What's it possible to say? ”’ returned the gentleman.
“What is to be said. Who can take any interest ina fellow
like this,’”” meaning Trotty; ‘in such degenerate times as
these. Look at him! What an object! The good old
times, the grand old times, the great old times! Those were
the times for a bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing.
Those were the times for every sort of thing, infact. There’s
nothing now-a-days. Ah!” sighed the red-faced gentle-
man. ‘‘ The good old times, the good old times! ”’

The gentleman didn’t specify what particular times he
alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to the pre-
sent times, from a disinterested consciousness that they had
done nothing very remarkable in producing himself.

“ The good old times, the good old times,’’ repeated the
gentleman, ‘* What times they were! They were the only
times. It’s of no use talking about any other times, or
discussing what the people are in these times. You don’t
call these times, do you? I don’t. Look into Strutt’s
Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be in any of the
good old English reigns.”

“ He hadn’t, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his
back or a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a
vegetable in all England for him to put into his mouth,”
said Mr, Filer. ‘‘ I can prove it by tables.”

FIRST QUARTER 103

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old
times, the grand old times, the great old times. No matter
what anybody else said, he still went turning round and
round in one set form of words concerning them; as a poor
squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the
mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as dis-
tinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his
deceased Millennium.

It is possible that poor old Trotty’s faith in these very
vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt
vague enough at that moment. One thing, however, was
plain to him in the midst of his distress; to wit, that how-
ever these gentlemen might differ in details, his misgivings
of that morning, and of many other mornings, were well
founded. ‘No, no. We can’t go right or do right,”
thought Trotty in despair. ‘‘ There is no good inus. We
are born bad! ”

But Trotty had a father’s heart within him; which had
somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree; and he
could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should
have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. ‘‘ God
help her,’’ thought poor Trotty. ‘“‘ She will know it soon
enough! ”

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to
take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at
a little distance, that he only became conscious of this
desire simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the
Alderman had not yet had his say, but jie was a philosopher,
too—practical, though! Oh, very practical!—and, as he
had no idea of losing any portion of his audience, he cried
Stop

‘Now, you know,” said the Alderman, addressing his
two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his face,
which was habitual to him, “‘I am a plain man, and a
practical man; and I go to work in a plain practical way.
That’s my way. ‘There is not the least mystery or difficulty
in dealing with this sort of people if you only understand
’em, and can talk to ’em, in their own manner. Now, you
Porter! Don’t you ever tell me, or anybody else, my
friend, that you haven’t always enough to eat, and of the
best, because I know better. I have tasted your tripe, you
know, and you can’t ‘chaff’ me. You understand what
‘chaff’ means, eh! That’s the right word, isn’t it? Ha,

104 THE CHIMES

ha, ha! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his
friends again, “ it’s the easiest thing on earth to deal with
this sort of people, if you only understand ’em.”

Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute!
Never out of temper with them! Easy, affable, joking,
knowing gentleman!

“ You see, my friend,” pursued the Alderman, “ there’s
a great deal of nonsense talked about Want— hard up,’ you
know: that’s the phrase, isn’t it? ha! ha! ha!—and I
intend to Put it Down. There’s a certain amount of cant in
vogue about Starvation, and Imeanto Putit Down. That's
all! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his
friends again, ‘“‘ you may Put Down anything among this
sort of people, if you only know the way to set about it!”

Trotty took Meg’s hand and drew it through his arm.
He didn’t seem to know what he was doing though.

* Your daughter, eh?” said the Alderman, chucking |

her familiarly under the chin.

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman
Cute! Knew what pleased them! Nota bit of pride!

* Where’s her mother? ” asked that worthy gentleman.

* Dead,” said Toby. ‘* Her mother got up linen; and
was called to Heaven when She was born.”

“Not to get up linen there, I suppose,” remarked the
Alderman pleasantly.

Toby might or might not have been able to separate his
wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs.
Alderman Cute had gone to heaven, would Mr. Alderman
Cute have pictured her as holding any state or station there.

“And you're making love to her, are you? ”’ said Cute to
the young smith.

“ Yes,” returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by
the question. ‘‘ And we are going to be married on New
Year’s Day.”

“What do you mean!” cried Filer, sharply. ‘‘ Mar-
ried!”

“ Why, yes, we’re thinking of it, Master,” said Richard.
“We're rather in a hurry you see, in case it should be Put
Down first.”

“Aht” eried Filer, with a groan. ‘ Put that down
indeed, Alderman, and you'll do something. Married!
Married!!_ The ignorance of the first principles of political
economy on the part of these people; their improvidence,

_

FIRST QUARTER 105

their wickedness, is, by Heavens! enough to—Now look at
that couple, will you! ”

Well! They were worth looking at. And marriage
seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in
contemplation.

“ A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,” said Mr.
Filer, ‘‘ and may labour all his life for the benefit of such
people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on
figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he
can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right
or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em
that they have no earthly right or business tobe born. And
that we know they haven’t. We reduced it to a mathe-
matical certainty long ago.”

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right
forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both
his friends, ‘‘ Observe me, will you? Keep your eye on the
practical man! ’’—and called Meg to him.

“Come here, my girl!’ said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrath-
fully, within the last few minutes; and he was indisposed
to let her come. But setting a constraint upon himself, he
came forward with a stride as Meg approached, and stood
beside her. Trotty kept her hand within his arm still, but
looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper in a dream.

“Now I’m going to give you a word or two of good
advice, my girl,’’ said the Alderman, in his nice easy way.
“It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a
Justice. You know I’m a Justice, don’t you?”

Meg timidly said “‘ Yes.” But everybody knew Alder-
man Cute was a Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice
always! Who such a mote of brightness in the public eye,
as Cute!

“You are going to be married, you say,” pursued the
Alderman. ‘‘ Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of
your sex! But never mind that. After you are married,
you'll quarrel with your husband, and come to be a distressed
wife. You may think not: but you will, because I tell you
so. Now I give you fair warning, that I have made up my
mind to Put distressed wives Down. So don’t be brought
before me. Yow’'ll have children—boys. Those boys will
grow up bad of course, and run wild in the streets, without
shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I’ll convict

106 THE CHIMES

’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys
without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband
will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby.
Then you'll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down
the streets. Now don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am
resolved to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young
mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put
Down. Don’t think to plead illness as an excuse with me;
or babies as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and
young children (I hope you know the Church-service, but
I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down. And if you
attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and
fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself,
I'll have no pity on you, for I have made up my mind to
Put all suicide Down. If there is one thing,’”’ said the Alder-
man, with his self-satisfied smile, ‘‘ on which I can be said to
have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put
suicide Down. So don’t try iton. That’s the phrase, isn’t
it! Ha, hal now we understand each other.”

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad to see that
Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover’s
hand.

“As for you, you dull dog,” said the Alderman, turning
with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young
smith, ‘“‘ what are you thinking of being married for? What
do you want to be married for, you silly fellow! If Iwasa
fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed
of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman’s apron-
strings! Why, she’ll be an old woman before you're a
middle-agedman! Andapretty figure you'll cut then, with a
draggle-tailed wife, and a crowd of squalling children erying
after you wherever you go!”

Oh, he knew how to banter the common people, Alder-
man Cute!

“There! Go along with you,” said the Alderman, “ and
repent. Don’t make such a fool of yourself as to get
married on New Year’s Day. You'll think very differently
of it long before next New Year’s Day: a trim young fellow
like you, with all the girls looking after you. There! Go
along with youl! ”’

They went along. Not arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand,
or interchanging bright glances: but she in tears, he gloomy
and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately

FIRST QUARTER 107

made old Toby’s leap up from its faintness? No, no. The
Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had Put them Down.

“ As you happen to be here,”’ said the Alderman to Toby,
“you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be quick?
You’re an old man.”’

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly,
made shift to murmur out that he was very quick and very
strong.

“ How old are you? ” inquired the Alderman.

“Tm over sixty, Sir,” said Toby.

“Oh! this man’s a great deal past the average age, you
know,” cried Mr. Filer, breaking in as if his patience would
bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a
little too far.

““T feel I’m intruding, Sir,’ said Toby. ‘ I—I mis-
doubted it this morning. Oh dear me!”

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter
from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but
Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a
certain given number of persons of ninepence-half-penny
a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very
well off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends,
and walked off in high feather; but immediately came
hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something.

“ Porter! ”’ said the Alderman.

“Sir!” said Toby.

“ Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s much too
handsome.”

““Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or
other, I suppose,” thought Toby, looking at the sixpence
in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. ‘ She’s been and
robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a-piece, I shouldn’t
wonder. It’s very dreadful! ”

“‘She’s much too handsome, my man,’ repeated the
Alderman. ‘The chances are, that she’ll come to no good, I
clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of her!”
With which, he hurried off again.

“‘ Wrong every way. Wrong every way!” said Trotty,
clasping his hands. ‘ Born bad. No business here!”

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the
words. Full, loud, and sounding—but with no encourage-
ment. No, not a drop.

108 THE CHIMES

“ The tune’s changed,” cried the old man, as he listened.
“ There’s not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should
there be? I have no business with the New Year nor with
the old one neither. Let me die!”

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the
very air spin. Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Good old
Times, Good old Times! Facts and figures, Facts and
figures! Put ’em down, Put ’em down! If they said any-
thing, they said this, till the brain of Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if
to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as
it happened; for finding the letter in one of them, and being
by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically,
into his usual trot, and trotted off.

THE SECOND QUARTER

Tue letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute was
addressed to a great man in the great district of the town.
The greatest district of the town. It must have been the
greatest district of the town, because it was commonly
called The World by its inhabitants.

The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby’s hand,
than another letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed
it with a very large coat-of-arms and no end of wax, but
because of the weighty name on the superscription, and the
ponderous amount of gold and silver with which it was
associated.

“ How different from us!” thought Toby, in all sim-
plicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction.
“ Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by the
number of gentlefolks able to buy ‘em; and whose share
does he take but his own! As to snatching tripe from any-
body’s mouth—he’d scorn it!”

With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted
character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron between
the letter and his fingers.

“His children,” said Trotty, and a mist rose before his
eyes; ‘* his daughters—Gentlemen may win their hearts and
marry them; they may be happy wives and mothers; they
may be handsome like my darling M—e—”

THE SECOND QUARTER 109

He couldn’t finish her name, the final letter swelled in
his throat to the size of the whole alphabet.

“ Never mind,” thought Trotty, ‘“‘ I know what I mean;
“that’s more than enough for me.” And with this con-
solatory rumination, trotted on.

It was a hard frost that day. The air was bracing,
crisp and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for
warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was too weak
to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At other times
Trotty might have learned a poor man’s lesson from the
wintry sun; but he was past that now.

The Year was Old that day. The patient Year had lived
through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and
faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn,
winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and
now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope,
high impulse, active happiness, itself, but messenger of
many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have
its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in
peace. ‘Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in
the fading year; but he was past that now.

And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made
by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head,
and made in vain!

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were
decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the
whole world, was waited for with welcomes, presents, and
rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year,
glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New
Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions
to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and
pocket-books; the coming of its moons and stars, and tides,
was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its
seasons in their days and nights were calculated with as much
precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women.

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New
Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead;
and its effects were selling cheap like some drowned mariner’s
aboard ship. Its patterns were Last Year’s and going ata
sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were
mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor!

Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year

or the Old.

110 THE CHIMES

“Put ’em down, put ’em down, Facts and Figures,
facts and figures, Good old Times, good old Times. Put
’em down, put ’em down”’—his trot went to that measure,
and would fit itself to nothing else.

But even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him,
in due time, to the end of his journey. To the mansion of
Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parliament.

The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter!
Not of Toby’s order. Quite another thing. His place was
the ticket though; not Toby’s.

This Porter underwent some hard panting before he
could speak; having breathed himself by coming in-
cautiously out of his chair, without first taking time to
think about it and compose his mind. When he had
found his voice—which it took him some time to do, for it
was a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat—he
said in a fat whisper—

“Who's it from? ”

Toby told him.

“You're to take it in yourself,” said the porter, pointing
to aroom at the end of a long passage, opening from the hall.
“Everything goes straight in on this day of the year.
You’re not a bit too soon, for the carriage is at the door now,
and they have only come to town for a couple of hours a’
purpose.”

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) with
great care, and took the way pointed out to him; observing
as he went that it was an awfully grand house, but hushed
and covered up, as if the family were in the country.
Knocking at the room door, he was told to enter from
within; and doing so found himself in a spacious library,
where, at a table strewn with files and papers, were a stately
lady in a bonnet, and a not very stately gentleman in black
who wrote from her dictation; while another, and an older,
and a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were on
the table, walked up and down, with one hand in his breast,
and looked complacently from time to time at his own
picture—a full length, a very full length—hanging over the
fireplace.

“What is this? ”’ said the last-named gentleman. ‘“ Mr.
lish, will you have the goodness to attend? ”

Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from Toby,
handed it, with great respect.

THE SECOND QUARTER nig lal

“From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph.”

“Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?” in-
guired Sir Joseph.

Toby replied in the negative.

“You have no bill or demand upon me; my name is
Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley; of any kind from anybody,
have you?” said Sir Joseph. “ If you have, present it.
There is a cheque-book by the side of Mr. Fish. I allow
nothing to be carried into the New Year. Every descrip-
tion of account is settled in this house at the close of the
old one. So that if death was to—to—”

“To cut,” suggested Mr. Fish.

“ To sever, sir,” returned Sir Joseph, with great asperity,
“ the cord of existence—my affairs would be found, I hope,
in a state of preparation.”

“My dear Sir Joseph! ”’ said the lady, who was greatly
younger than the gentleman. ‘‘ How shocking!”

“My Lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, floundering
now and then, as in the great depth of his observations, ‘‘ at
this season of the year we should think of—of—ourselves.
We should look into our—our accounts. We should feel
that every return of so eventful a period in human trans-
actions involves matters of deep moment between a man
and his—and his banker.”

Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the full
morality of what he was saying; and desired that even
Trotty should have an opportunity of being improved by
such discourse. Possibly he had this end before him in
still forbearing to break the seal of the letter, and in telling
Trotty to wait where he was, a minute.

“You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady—’’ ob-
served Sir Joseph.

‘“‘Mr. Fish has said that, I believe,” returned his lady,
glancing at the letter. ‘‘ But, upon my word, Sir Joseph, I
don’t think I can let it go after all. It is so very dear.”

“‘ What is dear? ” inquired Sir Joseph.

“That Charity, my love. They only allow two votes
for a subscription of five pounds. Really monstrous!”

“‘ My lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, “‘ you surprise
me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to the number
of votes; or is it, to a rightly-constituted mind, in pro-
portion to the number of applicants, and the wholesome
state of mind to which their canvassing reduces them?

112 THE CHIMES

Is there no excitement of the purest kind in having two
votes to dispose of among fifty people? ”

“Not to me, I acknowledge,” returned the lady. “ It
bores one. Besides, one can’t oblige one’s acquaintance.
But you are the Poor Man’s Friend, you know, Sir Joseph.
You think otherwise,”

“IT am the Poor Man’s Friend,” observed Sir Joseph,
glancing at the poor man present. ‘‘ As such I may be
taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no
other title.”

“Bless him for a noble gentleman!” thought Trotty.

“IT don’t agree with Cute here, for instance,” said Sir
Joseph, holding out the letter. ‘‘ I don’t agree with the
Filer party. I don’t agree with any party. My friend,
the Poor Man, has no business with anything of that sort,
and nothing of that sort has any business with him. My
friend, the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. No
man or body of men has any right to interfere between my
friend and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a
—a paternal character towards my friend. I say, ‘ My
good fellow, I will treat you paternally.’ ”

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more
comfortable.

“Your only business, my good fellow,’ pursued Sir
Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; ‘‘ your only business
in life is with me. You needn’t trouble yourself to think
about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good
for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensa-
tion of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of your
creation is: not that you should swill, and guzzle, and
associate your enjoyments, brutally, with food ’’—Toby
thought remorsefully of the tripe—‘‘ but that you should
feel the Dignity of Labour; go forth erect into the cheerful
morning air, and—and stop there. Live hard and temper-
ately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial, bring up your
family on next to nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the
clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings (I set you a good
example; you will find Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary,
with a cash-box before him at all times); and you may
trust me to be your Friend and Father.”

“Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!” said the lady,
with a shudder, ‘ Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked
legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors! ”

THE SECOND QUARTER 113

“ My lady,” returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, ‘‘ not
the less am I the Poor Man’s Friend and Father. Not the
less shall he receive encouragement at my hands. Every
quarter-day he will be put in communication with Mr. Fish.
Every New Year’s Day, myself and friends will drink his
health. Once every year, myself and friends will address
him with the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even
perhaps receive, in public, in the presence of the gentry,
a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by these
stimulants, and the Dignity of Labour, he sinks into his
comfortable grave, then my lady ”—here Sir Joseph blew
his nose—‘‘ I will be a Friend and Father—on the same
terms—to his children.”

Toby was greatly moved.

“Oh! you have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!” cried
his wife.

“My lady,” said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, ‘“ in-
gratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I expect
no other return.”

“Ah! Born bad,” thought Toby. ‘* Nothing melts us,”

“What man can do, J do,’ pursued Sir Joseph. ‘“ I
do my duty as the Poor Man’s Friend and Father; and I
endeavour to educate his mind by inculcating on all occasions
the one great moral lesson which that class requires. That
is, entire Dependence on myself. They have no business
whatever with—with themselves. If wicked and designing
persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient
and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct
and black-hearted ingratitude, which is undoubtedly the
case, I am their Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained;
it is in the nature of things.”

With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman’s
letter; and read it.

“Very polite and attentive, I am sure!” exclaimed
Sir Joseph. ‘ My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to
remind me that he has had ‘the distinguished honour’
—he is very good—of meeting me at the house of our
mutual friend Deedles, the banker, and he does me the
favour to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to
have Will Fern put down.”

“ Most agreeable! ’’ replied my Lady Bowley. ‘ The
worst man among them. He has been committing a

robbery, I hope.”

114 THE CHIMES

“Why, no,” said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter.
“Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to
London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to better
himself—that’s his story), and being found at night asleep
in a shed, was taken into custody, and carried next morning
before the Alderman. The Alderman observes (very
properly) that he is determined to put this sort of thing
down; and that if it will be agreeable to me to have Will
Fern put down, he will be happy to begin with him.”

“Let him be made an example of, by all means,” re-
turned the lady. ‘‘ Last winter, when I introduced pinking
and eyelet-holeing among the men and boys in the village
as a nice evening employment, and had the lines

‘Oh, let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations,’
set to music on the new system for them to sing the while;
this very Fern—I see him now—touched that hat of his
and said, ‘I humbly ask your pardon, my lady, but an’t
I something different from a great girl?’ I expected it,
of course; who can expect anything but insolence and in-
gratitude from that class of people? That is not to the
purpose, however. Sir Joseph, make an example of him!”

“Hem!” coughed Sir Joseph. ‘‘ Mr. Fish, if you'll
have the goodness to attend ”’

Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from
Sir Joseph’s dictation.

“Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to
you for your courtesy in the matter of the man William
Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favour-
able. I have uniformly considered myself in the light of
his Friend and Father, but have been repaid (a common case
I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant opposition
to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious spirit; his
character will not bear investigation; nothing will persuade
him to be happy when he might. Under these circum-
stances, it appears to me, I own, that when he comes before
you again (as you informed me he promised to do to-morrow,
pending your inquiries, and I think he may be so far relied
upon), his committal for some short term as a Vagabond,
would be a service to society, and would be a salutary
example in a country where—for the sake of those who are

THE SECOND QUARTER 115

through good and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of
the Poor, as well as with a view to that, generally speaking,
misguided class themselves—examples are greatly needed.
And I am,” and so forth.

“It appears,” remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed
this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, “as if this were
Ordained; really. At the close of the year I wind up my
account and strike my balance, even with William Fern! ”

Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low-
spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take the
letter.

“With my compliments and thanks,” said Sir Joseph.
“ae Stop! ”

“Stop! ”? echoed Mr. Fish.

“ You have heard, perhaps,” said Sir Joseph, oracularly,
“certain remarks into which I have been led respecting
the solemn period of time at which we have arrived, and the
duty imposed upon us of settling our affairs and being
prepared. You have observed that I don’t shelter myself
behind my superior standing in society, but that Mr. Fish
—that gentleman—has a cheque-book at his elbow, and is in
fact here to enable me to turn over a perfectly new leaf,
and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account.
Now, my friend, can you lay your hand upon your heart,
and say, that you also have made preparation for a New
Year? iz?

“ T am afraid, Sir,”’ stammered Trotty, looking meekly at
him, ‘‘ that I am a—a—little behind-hand with the world.”

“‘Behind-hand with the world!’ repeated Sir Joseph
Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

“JT am afraid, Sir,’’ faltered Trotty, ‘‘ that there’s a
matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chicken-

stalker.”
“To Mrs. Chickenstalker! ” repeated Sir Joseph in the

same tone as before.

‘‘A shop, Sir,” exclaimed Toby, “in the general line.
Also a—a little money on account of rent. A very little,
Sir. It oughtn’t to be owing, I know, but we have been
hard put to it, indeed.”

Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at
Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made
a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave

the thing up altogether.

116 THE CHIMES

“How a man, even among this improvident and im-
practicable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can
look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this con-
dition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get
up again in the morning, and—There! ” he said, turning his
back on Trotty, “‘ take the letter. Take the letter!”

“1 heartily wish it was otherwise, sir,’ said Trotty,
anxious to excuse himself. ‘* We have been tried very
hard.”

Sir Joseph still repeating ‘‘ Take the letter, take the
letter! ” and Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing, but
giving additional force to the request by motioning the
bearer.to the door, he had nothing for it but to make his
bow and leave the house. And in the street, poor Trotty
pulled his worn old hat down on his head to hide the grief
he felt at getting no hold on the New Year anywhere.

He didn’t even.lift his hat to look up at the bell tower
when he came to the old church on his return. He halted
there a moment, from habit: and knew that it was
growing dark, and that the steeple rose above him indistinct
and faint in the murky air. He knew, too, that the Chimes
would ring immediately; and that they sounded to his
fancy at such a time like voices in the clouds. But he only
made the more haste to deliver the Alderman’s letter, and
get out of the way before they began; for he dreaded to
hear them tagging “ Friends and Fathers, Friends and
Fathers,” to the burden they had rung out last.

Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore,
with all possible speed, and set off trotting homeward.
But what with his pace, which was at best an awkward
one in the street; and what with his hat, which didn’t
improve it; he trotted against somebody in less than no
time, and was sent staggering out into the road.

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said Trotty, pulling up
his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the torn
lining fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive. ‘I hope I
haven’t hurt you.” :

As to hurling anybody Toby was not such an absolute
Samson, but that he was much more likely to be hurt
himself: and indeed, he had flown out into the road, like a
shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own strength,

however, that he was in real concern for the other party:
and said again,

THE SECOND QUARTER 117

“T hope I haven’t hurt you? ”

The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned,
sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair and a
rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he suspected
him to be in jest. But satisfied of his good faith, he
answered:

“No, friend. You have not hurt me.”

“Nor the child, I hope? ” said Trotty.

“Nor the child,” returned the man. “I thank you
kindly.”’

As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his
arms, asleep; and shading her face with the long end of the
poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on.

The tone in which he said, “I thank you kindly,”
penetrated Trotty’s heart. He was so jaded and footsore,
and so soiled with travel, and looked about him so forlorn
and strange, that it was a comfort to him to be able to thank
any one: no matter for how little. Toby stood gazing after
him as he plodded wearily away; with the child’s arm cling-
ing round his neck.

At the figure in the worn shoes—now the very shade
and ghost of shoes—rough leather leggings, common frock,
and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood gazing: blind to the
whole street. And at the child’s arm, clinging round its
neck.

Before he merged into the darkness the traveller stopped;
and looking round, and seeing Trotty standing there yet,
seemed undecided whether to return or goon. After doing
first the one and then the other, he came back; and Trotty
went half way to meet him.

““ You can tell me, perhaps,” said the man with a faint
smile, ‘“‘ and if you can I am sure you will, and I’d rather
ask you than another—where Alderman Cute lives.”

“Close at hand,” replied Toby. ‘“ I'll show you his
house with pleasure.”

“IT was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,” said
the man accompanying Toby, “but I’m uneasy under
suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to be free to go and
seek my bread—I don’t know where. So, maybe he’ll
forgive my going to his house to-night.”

“ It’s impossible,”’ cried Toby with a start, ‘ that your

name’s Fern! ”
“Eh!” cried the other, turning on him in astonishment.

118 THE CHIMES

“Fern! Will Fern!” said Trotty.

“That’s my name,” replied the other.

“Why then,” cried Trotty, seizing him by the arm, and
looking cautiously round, “‘ for Heaven’s sake don’t go to
him! Don’t gotohim! He'll put you down as sure as ever
you were born. Here! come up this alley, and I'll tell you
what I mean. Don’t go to him.”

His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him mad;
but he bore him company nevertheless. When they were
shrouded from observation, Trotty told him what he knew,
and what character he had received, and all about it.

The subject of his history listened to it with a calmness
that surprised him. He did not contradict or interrupt it
once. He nodded his head now and then—more in cor-
roboration of an old and worn-out story, it appeared, than
in refutation of it; and once or twice threw back his hat,
and passed his freckled hand over a brow, where every furrow
he had ploughed seemed to have set its image in little. But
he did no more.

“Tt’s true enough in the main,” he said, “ master. I
could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be
as ‘tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans, to my
misfortun’. I can’t help it; I should do the like to-morrow.
As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search,
and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in
us, afore they'll help us to a dry good word! Well! I
hope they don’t lose good opinion as easy as we do,
or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping.
For myself, master, I never took with that hand ’’—holding
it before him—‘‘ what wasn’t my own; and never held it
back from work, however hard or poorly paid. Whoever
can deny it, let him chop it off! But when work won’t
maintain me like a human creetur; when my living is so
bad, that Iam Hungry out of doors and in; when I see a
whole working life begin that way, go on that way, and end
that way, without a chance of change; then I say to the
gentlefolks, “Keep away from me! Let my cottage be.
My doors is dark enough without your darkening of ’em
more. Don’t look for me to come up into the Park to help
the show when there’s a Birthday, or a fine Speechmaking,
or what not. Act your Plays and Games without me, and
be welcome to ’em and enjoy ’em. We’ve nought to do
with one another. I’m best let alone!’ ”

THE SECOND QUARTER 119

Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her eyes,
and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself
to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand
her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of
her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like
a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty,

“Tm not a cross-grained man by natur’, I believe; and
easy satisfied, I’m sure. I bear no ill-will against none of
“em: Ionly want to live like one of the Almighty’s creeturs. I
can’t, Idon’t; and so there’s a pit dug between me and them
that can and do. There’s others like me. You might tell
“em off by hundreds and by thousands sooner than by ones.”’

Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook his
head to signify as much.

“ Tve got a bad name this way,” said Fern; “ and I’m
not likely, I’m afeard, to get a better. ‘Ta’nt lawful to be
out of sorts, and I Am out of sorts, though God knows I’d
sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could. Well! I don’t
know as this Alderman could hurt me much by sending me
to gaol; but without a friend to speak a word for me he
might do it; and you see—” pointing downward with his
finger, at the child.

“She has a beautiful face,” said Trotty.

“Why yes!’’ replied the other in a low voice, as he
gently turned it up with both his hands towards his own,
and looked upon it steadfastly. “ I’ve thought so, many
times. I’ve thought so, when my hearth was very cold, and
cupboard very bare. I thought so t’other night when we
were taken like two thieves. But they—they shouldn’t
try the little face too often, should they, Lilian? That’s
hardly fair upon a man!”

He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an
air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current
of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were living.

“‘T never had one,” he returned, shaking his head.
“She’s my brother’s child: an orphan. Nine year old,
though you’d hardly think it; but she’s tired and worn out
now. They’d have taken care on her, the Union; eight and
twenty mile away from where we live; between four walls
(as they took care of my old father when he couldn’t work
no more, though he didn’t trouble ’em long); but I took
her instead, and she’s lived with me ever since. Her mother
had a friend once, in London here We are trying to find

120 THE CHIMES

her, and to find work too; but it’s a large place. Never
mind. More room for us to walk about in, Lilly!”

Meeting the child’s eyes with a smile which melted
Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand.

“J don’t so much as know your name,” he said, ‘‘ but
I’ve opened my heart free to you, for I’m thankful to you;
with good reason. I'll take your advice, and keep clear of
this——”’

“« Justice,’ suggested Toby.

“Ah!” he said. ‘“ If that’s the name they give him,
This Justice. And to-morrow will try whether there’s
better fortun’ to be met with somewheres near London.
Good-night. A Happy New Year!”

“Stay!’’ cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he re-
laxed his grip. ‘‘Stay! The New Year never can be
happy to me if we part like this. The New Year never can
be happy to me if I see the child and you go wandering away
you don’t know where, without a shelter for your heads.
Come home with me! I’m a poor man, living in a poor
place; but I can give you lodging for one night and never
miss it. Come home with me! Here! I'll take her!”
cried Trotty, lifting up the child. ‘“‘A pretty one! Id
carry twenty times her weight, and never know I'd got it.
Tell me if I go too quick for you. I’m very fast. I always
was!’’ ‘Trotty said this, taking about six of his trotting
paces to one stride of his fatigued companion; and with his
thin legs quivering again, beneath the load he bore.

“Why, she’s as light,”” said Trotty, trotting in his speech
as well as in his gait; for he couldn't bear to be thanked,
and dreaded a moment’s pause; ‘as light as a feather.
Lighter than a Peacock’s feather—a great deal lighter.
Here we are, and here we go! Round this first turning
to the right, Uncle Will, and past the pump, and sharp off
up the passage to the left, right opposite the public-house.
Here we are and here we go. Cross over, Uncle Will, and
mind the kidney pieman at the corner! Here we are and
here we go! Down the mews here, Uncle Will, and stop
at the black door, with ‘ T. Veck, Ticket Porter ’ wrote upon
a board; and here we are and here we go, and here we are
indeed, my precious Meg, surprising you! ”

With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set the
child down before his daughter in the middle of the floor.
The little visitor looked once at Meg; and doubting nothing

THE SECOND QUARTER 121

in that face, but trusting everything she saw there; ran into
her arms.

“Here we are and here we go! ” cried Trotty, running
round the room and choking audibly. ‘‘ Here, Uncle Will!
Here’s a fire, you know! Why don’t you come to the fire!
Oh, here we are and here we go! Meg, my precious darling,
where’s the kettle? Here it is and here it goes, and it’ll
bile in no time! ”

Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere or
other in the course of his wild career, and now put it on the
fire; while Meg, seating the child in a warm corner, knelt
down on the ground before her, and pulled off her shoes,
and dried her wet feet on a cloth. Aye, and she laughed at
Trotty too—so pleasantly, so cheerfully, that Trotty could
have blessed her where she kneeled: for he had seen that,
when they entered, she was sitting by the fire in tears.

““Why, father! ’’ said Meg; “ you’re crazy to-night, I
think. I don’t know what the Bellis would say to that.
Poor little feet. How cold they are! ”

“Oh, they’re warmer now!” exclaimed the child.
“ They’re quite warm now! ”

“No, no, no,” said Meg. ‘‘ We haven’t rubbed ’em half
enough. We’re so busy. So busy! And when they’re
done, we’ll brush out the damp hair; and when that’s done
we'll bring some colour to the poor pale face with fresh
water; and when that’s done we'll be so gay, and brisk, and
happy——!”

The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round
the neck; caressed her fair cheek with its hand; and said,
“Oh, Meg! oh, dear Meg!”

Toby’s blessing could have done no more. Who could

do more!

““ Why, father! ” cried Meg, after a pause.

“Here I am, and here I go, my dear,” said Trotty.

“‘ Good Gracious me! ” cried Meg. ‘ He’s crazy! He’s
put the dear child’s bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid
behind the door! ”

“TI didn’t go to do it, my love,” said Trotty, hastily
repairing this mistake. “‘ Meg, my dear?”

Meg looked towards him and saw that he had elaborately
stationed himself behind the chair of their male visitor,
where, with many mysterious gestures he was holding up
the sixpence he had earned.

122 THE CHIMES

“ T see, my dear,” said Trotty, “as I was coming in,
half an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the stairs; and
I’m pretty sure there was a bit of bacon too. As I don’t
remember where it was, exactly; I'll go myself and try to
find ’em.”’

With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase
the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs.
Chickenstalker’s; and presently came back, pretending that
he had not been able to find them, at first, in the dark.

‘“‘ But here they are, at last,” said Trotty, setting out the
tea-things, “‘ all correct! I was pretty sure it was tea, and
arasher. So it is. Meg, my pet, if you'll just make the
tea, while your unworthy father toasts the bacon, we shall
be ready, immediate. It’s a curious circumstance,” said
Trotty, proceeding in his cookery, with the assistance of the
toasting-fork, ‘‘ curious, but well known to my friends,
that I never care, myself, for rashers, nor for tea. I like to
see other people enjoy “em,” said Trotty, speaking very loud,
to impress the fact upon his guest, “ but to me, as food,
they’re disagreeable.”’

Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon—
ah!—as if he liked it; and when he poured the boiling
water in the tea-pot, looked lovingly down into the depths
of that snug cauldron, and suffered the fragrant steam to
curl about his nose, and wreathe his head and face in a
thick cloud. However, for all this, he neither ate nor
drank except, at the very beginning, a mere morsel for form's
sake, which he appeared to eat with infinite relish, but
declared was perfectly uninteresting to him.

No. ‘Trotty’s occupation was, to see Will Fern and
Lilian eat and drink; and so was Meg's. And never did
spectators at a city dinner or court banquet find such high
delight in seeing others feast: although it were a monarch
or a pope: as those two did, in looking on that night.
Meg smiled at Trotty, Trotty laughed at Meg. Meg shook
her head and made belief to clap her hands, applauding
Trotty; Trotty conveyed, in dumb-show, unintelligible
narratives of how and when and where he had found their
visitors, to Meg; and they were happy. Very happy.

“ Although,” thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he watched
Meg’s face; “* that match is broken off, I see! ”

“Now, I'll tell you what,” said Trotty, after tea,
“The little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know,”

THE SECOND QUARTER 123

“With good Meg!” cried the child, caressing her.
“ With Meg.”

“ That’s right,” said Trotty. ‘‘ And I shouldn’t wonder
if she kiss Meg’s father, won’t she! I’m Meg’s father.”’

Mightily delighted Trotty was when the child went
timidly towards him; and having kissed him; fell back
upon Meg again.

““She’s as sensible as Solomon,” said Trotty. ‘“ Here
we come, and here we—— No, we don’t. I don’t mean
that I What was I saying, Meg, my precious? ”

Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon her
chair, and with his face turned from her, fondled the child’s
head, half hidden in her lap.

“ To be sure,” said Toby. ‘‘To be sure! I don’t know
what I’m rambling on about to-night. My wits are wool-
gathering, I think. Will Fern, you come along with me.
Youw’re tired to death, and broken down for want of rest.
You come along with me.”

The man still played with the child’s curls, still leaned
upon Meg’s chair, still turned away his face. He didn’t
speak, but in his rough coarse fingers, clenching and ex-
panding in the fair hair of the child, there was an eloquence
that said enough.

“Yes, yes,” said Trotty, answering unconsciously what
he saw expressed in his daughter’s face. ‘‘ Take her with
you, Meg. Get her to-bed. There! Now, Will, I'll show
you where you lie. It’s not much of a place: only a loft:
but having a loft, I always say, is one of the great conveni-
ences of living in a mews; and till this coach-house and
stable gets a better let, we live here cheap. There’s plenty
of sweet hay up there, belonging to a neighbour; and it’s
as clean as hands and Meg can make it. Cheer up! Don’t
give way. A new heart for a New Year, always! ”

The hand released from the child’s hair, had fallen,
trembling, into Trotty’s hand. So Trotty, talking wilhout
intermission, led him out as tenderly and easily as if he had
been a child himself.

Returning before Meg, he Jistened for an instant at the
door of her little chamber; an adjoining room. ‘The child
was murmuring a simple Prayer before lying down to sleep;
and when she had remembered Meg’s name, “ Dearly,
Dearly ’”’—so her words ran—Trotty heard her stop and ask

for his.

124 THE CHIMES

It was some short time before the foolish little old
fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and draw his
chair to the warm hearth. But when he had done so, and
had trimmed the light, he took his newspaper from his
pocket, and began to read. Carelessly at first, and skimming
up and down the columns; but with an earnest and a sad
attention, very soon.

For this same dreaded paper re-directed ‘Trotty’s
thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day,
and which the day’s events had so marked out and shaped.
His interest in the two wanderers had set him on another
course of thinking, and a happier one, for the time; but
being alone again, and reading of the crimes and violences
of the people, he relapsed into his former train.

In this mood, he came to an account (and it was not
the first he had ever read) of a woman who had laid her
desperate hands not only on her own life but on that of her
young child—a crime so terrible, and so revolting to his soul,
dilated with the love of Meg, that he let the journal drop,
and fell back in his chair, appalled.

* Unnatural and cruel!’ Toby cried. ‘‘ Unnatural and
cruel! None but people who were bad at heart: born bad:
who had no business on the earth; could do such deeds.
It’s too true, all I’ve heard to-day; too just, too full of
proof. We’re Bad!”

The Chimes took up the words so suddenly—burst out
so loud, and clear, and sonorous—that the Bells seemed to
strike him in his chair.

And what was that, they said?

“ Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you, Toby! Toby
Veck, ‘Toby Veck, waiting for you, Toby. Come and see us,
come and see us, Drag him to us, drag him to us, Haunt and
hunt him, haunt and hunt him, Break his slumbers, break
his slumbers! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, door open wide,
Toby, Toby Veck, Toby Veck, door open wide, Toby—”
then fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and
ringing in the very bricks and plaster on the walls.

‘Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for having
run away from them that afternoon! No, no. Nothing
of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times
again. “ Maunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, Drag

him to us, drag him to us!” Deafening the whole
town!

THE SECOND QUARTER 125

“ Meg,” said Trotty, softly; tapping at her door. “ Do
you hear anything? ”

“I hear the Bells, father. Surely they’re very loud
to-night.”

+ Is she asleep?” said Toby, making an excuse for
peeping in.

“So peacefully and happily! I can’t leave her yet
though, father. Look how she holds my hand! ”

“Meg!” whispered Trotty. ‘‘ Listen to the Bells! ”

She listened, with her face towards him all the time.
But it underwent no change. She didn’t understandethem.

Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and once
more listened by himself. He remained here a little time.

It was impossible to bear it; their energy was dreadful.

“If the tower-door is really open,” said Toby, hastily
laying aside his apron, but never thinking of his hat, “‘ what’s
to hinder me from going up into the steeple and satisfying
myself? If it’s shut, I don’t want any other satisfaction.
That’s enough.”

He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into the
street that he should find it shut and locked, for he knew
the door well, and had so rarely seen it open, that he couldn’t
reckon above three times in all. It was alow, arched portal,
outside the church, in a dark nook behind a column; and
had such great iron hinges and such a monstrous lock, that
there was more hinge and lock than door.

But what was his astonishment when, coming bare-
headed to the church; and putting his hand into this dark
nook, with a certain misgiving that it might be unexpectedly
seized, and a shivering propensity to draw it back again;
he found that the door, which opened outwards, actually
stood ajar!

He thought, on the first surprise, of going back; or of
getting a light, or a companion; but his courage aided him
immediately; and he determined to ascend alone.

““ What have I to fear?” said Trotty. ‘ It’s a church!
Besides, the ringers may be there, and have forgotten to
shut the door.”

So he went in; feeling his way as he went, like a blind
man; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for the Chimes
were silent.

The dust from the street had blown into the recess; and
lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and velvet-like to

126 THE CHIMES

the foot, that there was something startling even in that.
The narrow stair was so close to the door, too, that he
stumbled at the very first; and shutting the door upon him-
self, by striking it with his foot, and causing it to rebound
back heavily, he couldn’t open it again.

This was another reason, however, for going on. Trotty
groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up, and round and
round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up!

It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping work;
so low and narrow, that his groping hand was always touch-
ing something; and it often felt so like a man or ghostly
figure standing up erect or making room for him to pass
without discovery, that he would rub the smooth wall up-
ward searching for its face, and downward searching for its
feet, while a chill tingling crept all over him. Twice or thrice
a door or niche broke the monotonous surface; and then it
seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on the
brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down;
until he found the wall again.

Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, up;
higher, higher, higher up!

At length the dull and stifling atmosphere began to
freshen: presently to feel quite windy: presently it blew
so strong, that he could hardly keep his legs. But he got
to an arched window in the tower, breast-high, and holding
tight, looked down upon the house-tops, on the smoking
chimneys, on the blurr and blotch of lights (towards the
place where Meg was wondering where he was and calling
to him perhaps), all kneaded up together in a leaven of mist
and darkness.

This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He had
caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down
through apertures in the oaken roof. At first he started;
thinking it was hair; then trembled at the very thought of
waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were higher.
Higher, ‘Trotty, in his fascination, or in working out the spell
upon him, groped his way. By ladders now, and toil-
somely, for it was steep, and not too certain holding for the
feet,

Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up;
higher, higher, higher up !

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with
his head just raised above its beams, he came among the

THIRD QUARTER 127

Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great shapes
in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark and
dumb.

A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell instantly
upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of stone and
metal. His head went round and round. He listened,
and then raised a wild “ Halloa! ”’

Halloa! was mournfully protracted by the echoes.

Giddy, confused, and out of.breath, and frightened,
Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a swoon.

THIRD QUARTER

Brack are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep
waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a
calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters uncouth and wild, arise
in premature, imperfect resurrection; the several parts and
shapes of different things are joined and mixed by chance;
and when, and how, and by what wonderful degrees, each
separates from each, and every sense and object of the mind
resumes its usual form and lives again, no man—though
every man is every day the casket of this type of the Great
Mystery—can tell.

So; when and how the darkness of the night-black
steeple changed to shining light; when and how
the solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures;
when and how the whispered ‘ Haunt and hunt him,”
breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon, be-
came a voice exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty,
** Break his slumbers;’’ when and how he ceased to have
a sluggish and confused idea that such things were com-
panioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates
or means to tell. But: awake, and standing on his feet upon
the boards where he had lately lain: he saw this Goblin
Sight.

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had
brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits,
elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying,
dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He
saw them round him on the ground; above him, in the air;
clambering from him, by the ropes below; looking down

128 THE CHIMES

————e

upon him, from the massive iron-girded beams: peeping ©
in upon him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; —
spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles,
as the water-ripples give place to a huge stone that suddenly
comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all
aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome,
crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw
them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them
merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, and heard
them sing; he saw them tear their hair and heard them howl,
He saw the air thick with them. He saw them come and go
incessantly. He saw them riding downward, soaring
upward, sailing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless
and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and
tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them
in the houses, busy at the sleepers’ beds. He saw them
soothing people in their dreams; he saw them beating them
with knotted whips; he saw them yelling in their ears; he
saw them playing softest music on their pillows; he saw
them cheering some with the songs of birds and the perfume
of flowers; he saw them flashing awful faces on the troubled
rest of others, from enchanted mirrors which they carried
in their hands.

He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men
but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with one
another, and possessing or assuming natures the most
opposite. He saw one buckling on innumerable wings
to increase his speed; another loading himself with chains
and weights to retard his. He saw some putting the hands
of clocks forward, some putting the hands of clocks back-
ward, some endeavouring to stop the clock entirely. He
saw them representing, here a marriage ceremony, there
a funeral; in this chamber an election, and in that a ball;
everywhere, restless and untiring motion.

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary
figures, as well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all this
while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for
support, and turned his white face here and there, in mute
and stunned astonishment.

As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous
change! The whole swarm fainted; their forms collapsed,
their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act
of falling died and melted into air. No fresh supply suc-

THIRD QUARTER 129

ceeded them. One straggler leaped down pretty briskly
from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on his feet,
but he was dead and gone before he could turn round.
Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the
tower, remained there, spinning over and over a little longer;
but these became at every turn more faint, and few, and
feeble, and soon went the way of the rest. The last of all
Was one small hunchback who had got into an echoing
corner, where he twirled and twirled and floated by himself
a long time; showing such perseverance, that at last he
dwindled to a leg and even to a foot, before he finally re-
tired; but he vanished in the end, and then the tower was
silent.

Then, and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a
bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell—in-
comprehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic,
grave, and darkly watchful of him, as he stood rooted to
the ground.

Mysterious and awful figures! Resting on nothing!
poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped and
hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless and
shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by
some light belonging to themselves—none else was there—
each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth.

He could not plunge down wildly through the opening
in the floor, for all power of motion had deserted him.
Otherwise he would have done so—aye, would have thrown
himself, head foremost, from the steepletop, rather than
have seen them watching him with eyes that would have
waked and watched although the pupils had been taken out.

Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely place,
and of the wild and fearful night that reigned there, touched
him like a spectral hand. His distance from all help; the
long, dark, winding, ghost-beleaguered way that lay be-
tween him and the earth on which men lived; his being
high, high, high up there, where it had made him dizzy to
see the birds fly in the day; cut off from all good people,
who at such an hour were safe at home and sleeping in their
beds; all this struck coldly through him, not as a reflection
but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes and thoughts
and fears were fixed upon the watchful figures; which,
rendered unlike any figures of this world by the deep gloom
‘and shade enwrapping and enfolding them, as well as by

I2—E

130 THE CHIMES

their looks and forms and supernatural hovering above the
floor, were nevertheless as plainly to be seen as were the
stalwart oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up
there to support the Bells. These hemmed them in a very
forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements, intricacies,
and depths of which, as from among the boughs of a dead
wood blighted for their Phantom use, they kept their dark-
some and unwinking watch.

A blast of air—how cold and shrill!—came moaning
through the tower. As it died away, the Great Bell, or the
Goblin of the Great Bell. spoke.

“‘ What visitor is this? ” it said. The voice was low and
deep, and Trotty fancied that it sounded in the other
figures as well.

“I thought my name was called by the Chimes!” said
Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of supplication.
‘TI hardly know why I am here, or how I came. I have
listened to the Chimes these many years. They have
cheered me often.”’

“And you have thanked them? ”’ said the Bell.

“-A thousand times! ”’ cried Trotty.

‘* How? ”

‘Tam a poor man,” faltered Trotty, ‘‘ and could only
thank them in words.”

‘““And always so?” inquired the Goblin of the Bell.
** Have you never done us wrong in words? ”

‘Nol ” cried Trotty eagerly.

“Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in
words? ”’ pursued the Goblin of the Bell.

Trotty was about to answer, ‘ Never!’ But he
stopped, and was confused.

““The voice of Time,” said the Phantom, “cries to
man, Advance! Time ts for his advancement and improve-
ment; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his
better life; his progress onward to that goal within its
knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period when
Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and
violence, have come and gone: millions uncountable have
suffered, lived, and died; to point the way Before him.
Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course,
arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead;

and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary
check! ”

THIRD QUARTER 131

“T never did so, to my knowledge, Sir,” said Trotty.
“ It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn’t go to do ity
I’m sure.”

“Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,”
said the Goblin of the Bell, “a cry of lamentation for days
which have had their trial and their failure, and have left
deep traces of it which the blind may see—a cry that only
serves the Present Time, by shewing men how much it needs
their help when any ears can listen to regrets for such a
Past—who does this, does a wrong. And you have done
that wrong to us, the Chimes.”

Trotty’s first excess of fear was gone. But he had felt
tenderly and gratefully towards the Bells, as you have
seen; and when he heard himself arraigned as one who
had offended them so weightily, his heart was touched with
penitence and grief.

“ Tf you knew,” said Trotty, clasping his hands earnestly
—‘ or perhaps you do know—if you know how often you
have kept me company; how often you have cheered me
when I’ve been low; how you were quite the plaything of
my little daughter Meg (almost the only one she ever had)
when first her mother died, and she and me were left alone—
you won’t bear malice for a hasty word!”

““Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking
disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or pain, or
sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make
response to any creed that gauges human passions and
affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on
which humanity may pine and wither; does us wrong.
That wrong you have done us! ” said the Bell.

“J have!” said Trotty. ‘‘ Oh forgive me! ”

“Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth; the
Putters Down of crushed and broken natures, formed to
be raised up higher than such maggots of the time can crawl
or can conceive,”’ pursued the Goblin of the Bell: “ who does
so, does us wrong. And you have done us wrong! ”

‘Not meaning it,’ said Trotty. ‘“‘ In my ignorance.
' Not meaning it! ”

“Lastly, and most of all,” pursued the Bell. ‘‘ Who
turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind;
abandons them as Vile; and does not trace and track with
pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they fell
from Good—grasping in their fall some tufts and shreds of

132 THE CHIMES

that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and
dying in the gulf below; does wrong to Heaven and Man,
to Time and to Eternity. And you have done that wrong! ”

“Spare me,” cried Trotty, falling on his knees; * for
Mercy’s sake! ”’

“Listen! ”’ said the Shadow.

“ Listen!” said the other Shadows.

“Listen!” said a clear and child-like voice, which
Trotty thought he recognised as having heard before.

The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swell-
ing by degrees, the melody ascended to the roof, and filled
the choir and nave. Expanding more and more, it rose
up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awakening
agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak, the hollow
bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid stone; until
the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, and it soared
into the sky.

No wonder that an old man’s breast could not contain
asound so vastand mighty. It broke from that weak prison
in arush of tears; and Trotty put his hands before his face.

* Listen! ’’ said the Shadow.

“Listen! ”? said the other Shadows.

“Listen! ”’ said the child’s voice.

A solemn strain of blended voices rose into the tower.

It was a very low and mournful strain: a Dirge: and
as he listened, Trotty heard his child among the singers.

“She is Dead!” exclaimed the old man. “ Meg is
dead! Her Spirit calls to me. I hear it!”

“ The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and mingles
with the dead—dead hopes, dead fancies, dead imaginings
of youth,” returned the Bell; ‘“ but she is living. Learn
from her life, a living truth. Learn from the creature
dearest to your heart, how bad the Bad are born. See
every bud and leaf plucked one by one from off the fairest
stem, and know how bare and wretched it may be. Follow
her! To Desperation! ”

Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm
forth, and pointed downward.

“The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion,” said the
figure. “Go! It stands behind you! ”

Trotty turned, and saw—the child? The child Will

Fern had carried in the street; the child whom Meg had
watched, but now, asleep.

‘THIRD QUARTER 133

“ I carried her myself to-night,” said T rotty. “ Inthese
arms! ”

“Show him what he calls himself,’ said the dark
figures, one and all.

The tower opened at his feet. He looked down, and
beheld his own form, lying at the bottom, on the outside;
crushed and motionless.

“No more a living man!” cried Trotty. ‘ Dead!”

“ Dead!” said the figures all together.

“ Gracious Heaven! And the New Year me

“* Past,” said the figures.

“What!” he cried, shuddering. ‘‘ I missed my way
and coming on the outside of this tower in the dark, fell
down—a year ago! ”

“ Nine years ago! ” replied the figures.

As they gave the answer, they recalled their outstretched
hands; and where their figures had been, there the Bells were.

And they rung; their time being come again. And
once again, vast multitudes of phantoms sprung into
existence; once again, were incoherently engaged, as they
had been before; once again, faded on the stopping of the
Chimes; and dwindled into nothing.

“What are these? ” he asked his guide. “ If I am not
mad, what are these? ”

“Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air,”
returned the child. ‘‘ They take such shapes and occupa-
tions as the hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the recollec-
tions they have stored up, give them.”

“ And you,” said Trotty wildly. ‘‘ What are you?”

“‘ Hush, hush! ” returned the child. ‘“‘ Look here! ”

In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of
embroidery which he had often, often, seen before her;
Meg, his own dear daughter, was presented to his view.
He made no effort to imprint his kisses on her face; he did
not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he knew that such
endearments were for him no more. But he held his tremb-
ling breath, and brushed away the blinding tears, that he
might look upon her; that he might only sce her.

Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear eye,
how dimmed. The bloom, how faded from the cheek.
Beautiful she was, as she had ever been, but Hope, Hope,
Hope, oh where was the fresh Hope that had spoken to him

like a voice! g

134 THE CHIMES

She looked up from her work, at a companion. Follow-
ing her eyes, the old man started back.

In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance. In
the long silken hair, he saw the self-same curls; around the
lips, the child’s expression lingering still. See! In the
eyes, now turned inquiringly on Meg, there shone the very
look that scanned those features when he brought her
home.

Then what was this, beside him!

Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something
reigning there; a lofty something, undefined and indistinct,
which made it hardly more than a remembrance of that
child—as yonder figure might be—yet it was the same:
the same: and wore the dress.

Hark. They were speaking!

“Meg,” said Lilian, hesitating. ‘‘ How often you raise
your head from your work to look at me! ”’

“Are my looks so altered that they frighten you?”
asked Meg.

““Nay, dear! But you smile at that, yourself! Why
not smile, when you look at me, Meg? ”

“IT do so. Do I not?” she answered: smiling on
her.

** Now you do,” said Lilian, ‘ but not usually. When
you think I’m busy, and don’t see you, you look so anxious
and so doubtful, that I hardly like to raise my eyes. There
is little cause for smiling in this hard and toilsome life, but
you were once so cheerful.”

“Am I not now!” cried Meg, speaking in a tone of
strange alarm, and rising to embrace her. ‘“ Do J make
our weary life more weary to you, Lilian! ”

“You have been the only thing that made it life,” said
Lilian, fervently kissing her; ‘ sometimes the only thing
that made me care to live so, Meg. Such work, such work!
So many hours, so many days, so many long, long nights of
hopeless, cheerless, never-ending work—not to heap up
riches, not to live grandly or gaily, not to live upon enough,
however coarse; but to earn bare bread; to scrape together
just enough to toil upon, and want upon, and keep alive
in us the consciousness of our hard fate! Oh Meg, Meg!”
she raised her voice and twined her arms about her as she
spoke, like one in pain, ‘‘ How can the cruel world go round,
and bear to look upon such lives! ”

THIRD QUARTER 135

“ Lilly! ” said Meg, soothing her, and putting back her
hair from her wet face. ‘‘ Why Lilly! You! So pretty
and so young! ”

“Oh Meg!” she interrupted, holding her at arm’s-
length, and looking in her face imploringly. ‘‘ The worst
of all, the worst of all! Strike me old, Meg! Wither me
and shrivel me, and free me from the dreadful thoughts that
tempt me in my youth! ”

Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But the Spirit
of the child had taken flight. Was gone.

Neither did he himself remain in the same place; for
Sir Joseph Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor, held a
great festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the natal day
of Lady Bowley; and as Lady Bowley had been born on
New Year’s Day (which the local newspapers considered
an especial pointing of the finger of Providence to number
One, as Lady Bowley’s destined figure in Creation), it was
on a New Year’s Day that this festivity took place.

Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced gentle-
man was there, Mr. Filer was there, the great Alderman
Cute was there—Alderman Cute had a sympathetic feeling
with great people, and had considerably improved his ac-
quaintance with Sir Joseph Bowley on the strength of his
attentive letter: indeed had become quite a friend of the
family since then—and many guests were there. ‘Trotty’s
ghost was there, wandering about, poor phantom, drearily;
and looking for its guide.

There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall. At
which Sir Joseph Bowley in his celebrated character of Friend
and Father of the Poor, was to make his great speech.
Certain plum puddings were to be eaten by his Friends and
Children in another Hall first; and at a given signal,
Friends and Children flocking in among their Friends and
Fathers, were to form a family assemblage, with not one
manly eye therein unmoistened by emotion.

But there was more than this to happen. Even more
than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of
Parliament, was to play a match at skittles—real skittles—
with his tenants.

“‘ Which quite reminds one,” said Alderman Cute, “ of
the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff King Hal.
Ah. Fine character!” ~~

“Very,” said Mr. Filer, dryly. ‘‘ For marrying women

136 THE CHIMES

and murdering ’em. Considerably more than the average
number of wives by the bye.

“ You’ll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder ’em,
eh? ” said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley, aged twelve.
“ Sweet boy! We shall have this little gentleman in Parlia-
ment now,” said the Alderman, holding him by the shoulders,
and looking as reflective as he could, “ before we know
where we are. We shall hear of his successes at the poll;
his speeches in the house; his overtures from Governments;
his brilliant achievements of all kinds; ah! we shall make
our little orations about him in the common council, I'll
be bound; before we have time to look about us! ”

‘““Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!” Trotty
thought. But his heart yearned towards the child, for the
love of those same shoeless and stockingless boys, pre-
destined (by the Alderman) to turn out bad, who might have
been the children of poor Meg.

“ Richard,’”’ moaned Trotty, roaming among the com-
pany, to and fro; ‘ where is he? I can’t find Richard!
Where is Richard? ”

Not likely to be there, if still alive! But Trotty’s grief
and solitude confused him; and he still went wandering
among the gallant company; looking for his guide, and
saying, ‘‘ Where is Richard? Show me Richard! ”

He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr. Fish,
the confidential Secretary, in great agitation.

‘Bless my heart and soul!” cried Mr. Fish. ‘‘ Where’s
Alderman Cute? Has anybody seen the Alderman? ”

Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever help
seeing the Alderman? He was so considerate, so affable;
he bore so much in mind the natural desire of folks to see
him; that if he had a fault, it was the being constantly On
View. And wherever the great people were, there, to be
sure, attracted by the kindred sympathy between great
souls, was Cute,

Several voices cried that he was in the circle round Sir
Joseph. Mr. Fish made way there; found him; and took
him secretly into a window near at hand. Trotty joined
them. Not of his own accord. He felt that his steps were
led in that direction.

‘“‘My dear Alderman Cute,” said Mr. Fish. “A little
more this way. The most dreadful circumstance has
occurred, I have this moment received the intelligence.

THIRD QUARTER 137

I think it will be best not to acquaint Sir Joseph with it till
the day is over. You understand Sir Joseph, and will
give me your opinion. The most frightful and deplorable
event! ”

“ Fish!’’ returned the Alderman. ‘“ Fish! My good
fellow, what is the matter? Nothing revolutionary, I hope!
No—no attempted interference with the magistrates? ”

““ Deedies, the banker,” gasped the Secretary, “‘ Deedles
Brothers—who was to have been here to-day—high in
office in the Goldsmiths’ Company. a

“Not stopped! ” exclaimed the Alderman. “ It can’t be!’

“Shot himself.”

“ Good God!”

“ Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his own
counting-house,” said Mr. Fish, ‘ and blew his brains out.
No motive. Princely circumstances! ”

“ Circumstances! ’”’ exclaimed the Alderman. ‘“ A man
of noble fortune. One of the most respectable of men.
Suicide, Mr. Fish! By his own hand! ”

“This very morning,” returned Mr. Fish.

“Oh the brain, the brain! ” exclaimed the pious Alder-
man, lifting up his hands. ‘‘ Oh the nerves, the nerves;
the mysteries of this machine called Man! Oh the little
that unhinges it: poor creatures that we are! Perhaps a
dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the conduct of his son, who,
I have heard, ran very wild, and was in the habit of drawing
bills upon him without the least authority! A most
respectable man. One of the most respectable men I ever
knew! A lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A _ public
calamity! I shall make a point of wearing the deepest
mourning. A most respectable man! But there is One
above. We must submit, Mr. Fish. We must submit! ”

What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down? Re--
member, Justice, your high moral boast and pride. Come,
Alderman! Balance those scales. Throw me into this,
the empty one, No Dinner, and Nature’s Founts in some
poor woman, dried by starving misery and rendered obdur-
ate to claims for. which her offspring has authority in holy
mother Eve. Weigh me the two: you Daniel going to
judgment, when your day shall come! Weigh them, in the
eyes of suffering thousands, audience (not unmindful) of
the grim farce you play! Or supposing that you strayed
from your five wits—it’s not so far to go, but that it might

138 THE CHIMES

be—and laid hands upon that throat of yours, warning your
fellows (if you have a fellow) how they croak their comfort-
able wickedness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What
then?

The words rose up in Trotty’s breast, as if they had
been spoken by some other voice within him. Alderman
Cute pledged himself to Mr. Fish that he would assist him
in breaking the melancholy catastrophe to Sir Joseph, when
the day was over. Then, before they parted, wringing Mr.
Fish’s hand in bitterness of soul, he said, ‘‘ The most
respectable of men!” And added that he hardly knew:
not even he: why such afflictions were allowed on earth.

“It’s almost enough to make one think, if one didn’t
know better,’’ said Alderman Cute, “ that at times some
motion of a capsizing nature was going on in things, which
affected the general economy of the social fabric. Deedles
Brothers! ”

The skittle-playing came off with immense success, Sir
Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully; Master
Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance also; and
everybody said that now, when a Baronet and the Son of
a Baronet played at skittles, the country was coming round
again, as fast as it could come.

At its proper time the Banquet was served up. Trotty
involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he felt
himself conducted thither by some stronger impulse than
his own free will. The sight was gay in the extreme; the
ladies were very handsome; the visitors delighted, cheerful,
and good-tempered. When the lower doors were opened,
and the people flocked in, in their rustic dresses, the beauty
of the spectacle was at its height; but Trotty only mur-
mured more and more, ‘“* Where is Richard! He should
help and comfort her! I can’t see Richard! ”

There had been some speeches made; and Lady Bowley’s
health had been proposed; and Sir Joseph Bowley had
returned thanks; and had made his great speech, showing
by various pieces of evidence that he was the born Friend
and Father, and so forth; and had given as a Toast, his
Friends and Children, and the Dignity of Labour; when a
slight disturbance at the bottom of the Hall attracted
Toby’s notice. After some confusion, noise, and opposition,

one man broke through the rest, and stood forward by
himself.

THIRD QUARTER 139

Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought of,
and had looked for many times. In a scantier supply of
light, he might have doubted the identity of that worn
man, so old, and grey, and bent; but with a blaze of lamps
upon his gnarled and knotted head, he knew Will Fern as
soon as he stepped forth.

“What is this!” exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising. ‘‘ Who
gave this man admittance? This is a criminal from prison!
Mr. Fish, Sir, will you have the goodness Re

“ A minute!” said Will Fern. “‘ A minute! My Lady,
you was born on this day along with a New Year. Get me
a minute’s leave to speak.”

She made some intercession for him, and Sir Joseph
took his seat again, with native dignity.

The ragged visitor—for he was miserably dressed—
looked round upon the company, and made his homage to
them with a humble bow.

“ Gentlefolks! ” he said. ‘‘ You’ve drunk the Labourer.
Look at me! ”

** Just come from jail,’ said Mr. Fish.

“ Just come from jail,’ said Will. ‘‘ And neither for
’ the first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor yet the
fourth.”

Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four times
was over the average; and he ought to be ashamed of
himself.

“ Gentlefolks!’”’ repeated Will Fern. ‘‘ Look at me!
You see I’m at the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm, beyond
your help; for the time when your kind words or kind
actions could have done ME good,’’—he struck his hand upon
his breast, and shook his head—“ is gone, with the scent of
last year’s beans or clover on the air. Let me say a word
for these,” pointing to the labouring people in the Hall;
“and when you’re met together, hear the real Truth spoke
out for once.”

“‘ There’s not a man here,” said the host, ‘‘ who would
have him for a spokesman.”

“ Like enough, Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the less
true, perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that’s a proof on it.
Gentlefolks, I’ve lived many a year in this place. You may
see the cottage from the sunk fence over yonder. I’ve
seen the ladies draw it in their books a hundred times.
It looks well in a picter, I’ve heerd say: but there ain’t

140 THE CHIMES

weather in picters, and maybe ’tis fitter for that, than for a
place to live in. Well, I lived there. How hard, how
bitter hard, I lived there, I won’t say. Any day in the year,
and every day, you can judge for your own selves.”

He spoke as he had spoken on the night when Trotty
found him in the street. His voice was deeper and more
husky, and had a trembling in it now and then; but he
never raised it passionately, and seldom lifted it above the
firm stern level of the homely facts he stated.

“?Tis harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow
up decent: commonly decent: in such a place. That I
growed up a man and not a brute, says something for me
—as Iwas then. As I am now, there’s nothing can be said
for me or done forme. I’m past it.”

“Tam glad this man has entered,” observed Sir Joseph,
looking round serenely. ‘“‘ Don’t disturb him. It appears
to be Ordained. He is an Example: a living example.
I hope and trust, and confidently expect, that it will not be
lost upon my Friends here.”

““T dragged on,” said Fern, after a moment’s silence.
“Somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows how;
but so heavy, that I couldn’t put a cheerful face upon it,
or make believe that I was anything but what I was. Now,
gentlemen—you gentlemen that sits at Sessions—when you
see a man with discontent writ on his face, you says to one
another, ‘ He’s suspicious. I has my doubts,’ says you,
‘about Will Fern. Watch that fellow!’ I don’t say,
gentlemen, it ain’t quite nat’ral, but I say ’tis so; and from
that hour, whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone—all one—
it goes against him.”

Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat
pockets, and leaning back in his chair, and smiling, winked
at a neighbouring chandelier. As much as to say, ‘“‘ Of
course! I told you so. The common cry! Lord bless
you, we are up to all this sort of thing—myself and human
nature.”

“ Now, gentlemen,” said Will Fern, holding out his
hands, and flushing for an instant in his haggard face.
“See how your laws are made to trap and hunt us when
we're brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere. And I’m
a vagabond. To jail with him! I comes back here. I
goes a-nutting in your woods, and breaks—who don’t?—a
limber branch or two. To jail with him! One of your

THIRD QUARTER 141

keepers sees me in the broad day, near my own patch of
garden, with a gun. To jail with him! I has a nat’ral
angry word with that man, when I’m free again. To jail
with him! I cuts a stick. To jail with him! I eats a
rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with him! It’s twenty
mile away; and coming back, I begs a trifle on the road.
To jail with him! At last, the constable, the keeper—
anybody—finds me anywhere, a doing anything. To jail
with him, for he’s a vagrant, and a jail-bird known; and
jail’s the only home he’s got.”

The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should say,
“A very good home, too! ”

“Do I say this to serve my cause!” cried Fern. ‘‘ Who
can give me back my liberty, who can give me back my
good name, who can give me back my innocent niece? Not
all the Lords and Ladies in wide England. But, gentlemen,
gentlemen, dealing with other men like me, begin at the
right end. Give us, in mercy, better homes when we’re
a-lying in our cradles; give us better food when we’re a-
working for our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back
when we’re a-going wrong; and don’t set Jail, Jail, Jail,
afore us, everywhere we turn. There ain’t a condescension
you can show the Labourer then, that he won’t take, as
ready and as grateful as a man can be; for he has a patient,
peaceful, willing heart. But you must put his rightful spirit
in him first; for whether he’s a wreck and ruin such as me,
or is like one of them that stand here now, his spirit is
divided from you at this time. Bring it back, gentlefolks,
bring it back! Bring it back, afore the day comes when
even his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words
seem to him to read, as they have sometimes read in my own
eyes—in Jail: ‘ Whither thou goest, I can Not go; where
thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people are Not my people;
Nor thy God my God!’ ”

A sudden stir and agitation took place in the Hall.
Trotty thought at first, that several had risen to eject the
man; and hence this change in its appearance. But
another moment showed him that the room and all the
company had vanished from his sight, and that his daughter
was again before him, seated at her work. But in a poorer,
meaner garret than before; and with no Lilian by her side.

The frame at which she had worked, was put away upon
a shelf and covered up. The chair in which she had sat,

142 THE CHIMES

was turned against the wall. A history was written in
these little things, and in Meg’s grief-worn face. Oh! who
could fail to read it!

Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was too dark
to see the threads; and when the night closed in, she lighted
her feeble candle and worked on. Still her old father was
invisible about her, looking down upon her; loving her—
how dearly loving her!—and talking to her in a tender
voice about the old times and the Bells. Though he knew,
poor Trotty, though he knew she could not hear him.

A great part of the evening had worn away, when a
knock came at her door. She opened it. A man was on
the threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken sloven:
wasted by intemperance and vice: and with his matted
hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder: but with some
traces on him, too, of having been a man of good proportion
and good features in his youth.

He stopped until he had her leave to enter; and she,
retiring a pace or two from the open door, silently and
sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had his wish. He
saw Richard.

‘“May I come in, Margaret? ”

“Yes! Comein. Come in!”

It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke; for
with any doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh discordant
voice would have persuaded him that it was not Richard
but some other man.

There were but two chairs in the room. She gave him
hers, and stood at some short distance from him, waiting to
bear what he had to say.

He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor; with a
lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of such deep
degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of such a miserable
downfall, that she put her hands before her face and turned
away, lest he should see how much it moved her.

Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such
trifling sound, he lifted his head, and began to speak as if
there had been no pause since he entered.

“ Still at work, Margaret? You work late.”

“T generally do.”

*" And early? ”

** And early.”

“So she said. She said you never tired; or never

THIRD QUARTER 143

owned that you tired. Not all the time you lived together.
Not even when you fainted, between work and fasting.
But I told you that the last time I came.”

“You did,” she answered. ‘“‘ And I implored you to tell
me nothing more; and you made me a solemn promise,
Richard, that you never would.”

“‘ A solemn promise,” he repeated, with a drivelling laugh
and vacant stare. ‘‘A solemn promise. To be sure. A
solemn promise!’”’ Awakening, as it were, after a time :
in the same manner as before; he said with sudden anima-
tion—

“How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do?
She has been to me again! ”

“ Again! ” cried Meg, clasping her hands. ‘‘ Oh, does
she think of me so often! Has she been again! ”

“Twenty times again,’ said Richard. ‘‘ Margaret, she
haunts me. She comes behind me in the street, and thrusts
it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the ashes when I’m
at my work (ha, ha! that ain’t often), and before I can turn
my head, her voice is in my ear, saying, ‘ Richard, don’t
look round. For Heaven’s love, give her this!’ She brings
it where I live; she sends it in letters; she taps at the
window and lays it on the sill. What can Ido? Look at
it

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the
money it enclosed.

“Hide it,” said Meg. ‘‘ Hide it! When she comes
again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul. ‘That
I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and pray for her.
That in my solitary work, I never cease to have her in my
thoughts. That she is with me, night and day. That if I
died to-morrow, I would remember her with my last breath.
But that I cannot look upon it! ”

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse
together, said with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness—

“IT told her so. I told her so, as plain as words could
speak. I’ve taken this gift back and left it at her door, a
dozen times since then. But when she came at last, and
stood before me, face to face, what could I do?”

“You saw her! ” exclaimed Meg. ‘‘ Yousawher! Oh,
Lilian, my sweet girl! Oh, Lilian, Lilian! ”

“I saw her,” he went on to say, not answering, but en-
gaged in the same slow pursuit of his own thoughts. “ There

144 THE CHIMES

she stood trembling! ‘How does she look, Richard?
Does she ever speak of me? Is she thinner? My old place
at the table: what’s in my old place? And the frame she
taught me our old work on—has she burnt it, Richard?’
There she was. I heard her say it.”

Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears streaming from
her eyes, bent over him to listen. Not to lose a breath.

With his arms resting on his knees; and stooping
forward in his chair, as if what he said were written on the
ground in some half-legible character, which it was his
occupation to decipher and connect; he went on.

«* Richard, I have fallen very low; and you may guess
how much I have suffered in having this sent back, when I
can bear to bring it in my hand to you. But you loved her
once, even in my memory, dearly. Others stepped in
between you; fears, and jealousies, and doubts, and
vanities, estranged you from her; but you did love her,
evenin my memory!’ I suppose I did,”’ he said, interrupt-
ing himself for a moment. “I did! That’s neither here
nor there. ‘Oh Richard, if you ever did; if you have any
memory for what is gone and lost, take it to her once more.
Once more! Tell her how I begged and prayed. Tell her
how I laid my head upon your shoulder, where her own head
might have lain, and was so humble to you, Richard. Tell
her that you looked into my face, and saw the beauty which
she used to praise, all gone: all gone: and in its place, a
poor, wan, hollow cheek, that she would weep to see. Tell
her everything, and take it back, and she will not refuse
again. She will not have the heart!’ ’”’

So he sat musing, and repeating the last words, until he
woke again, and rose.

*“ You won't take it, Margaret? ”’

She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to him to
leave her.

“Good night, Margaret.”

** Good night!”

He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and
perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice.
It was a quick and rapid action; and for the moment some
flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. In the next he
went as he had come. Nor did this glimmer of a quenched
fire seem to light him to a quicker sense of his debasement.

In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the mind or

THIRD QUARTER 145

beady, Meg’s work must be done. She sat down to her task,
and plied it. Night, midnight. Still she worked.

She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold; and
rose at intervals to mend it. The Chimesrang half-past twelve
while she was thus engaged; and when they ceased she heard
a gentle knocking at the door. Before she could so much as
wonder who was there, at that unusual hour, it opened.

Oh Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at
this! Oh Youth and Beauty, blest and blessing all within
your reach, and working out the ends of your Beneficent
Creator, look at this!

She saw the entering figure; screamed its name; cried,
* Lilian! ”

It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her; clinging
to her dress.

“Up, dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest! ”

“ Never more, Meg; never more. Here! Here! Close to
you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath upon my face!”’

“Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart—
no mother’s love can be more tender—lay your head upon
my breast! ”

““ Never more, Meg. Never more! When I first looked
into your face, you knelt before me. On my knees before
you, let me die. Let it be here! ”

“You have come back. My Treasure! We will live
together, work together, hope together, die together! ”’

“Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about me;
press me to your bosom; look kindly on me; but don’t raise
me. Let it be here. Let me see the last of your dear face
upon my knees! ”

Oh Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at
this! Oh Youth and Beauty, working out the ends of your
Beneficent Creator, look at this!

“ Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me! I
know you do, I see you do, but say so, Meg!”

She said so, with her lips on Lilian’s cheek. And with
her arms twined round—she knew it now—a broken heart.

“‘ His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once more!
He suffered her to sit beside His feet, and dry them with her
hair. Oh, Meg, what Mercy and Compassion! ”

As she died, the Spirit of the child returning, innocent
and radiant, touched the old man with its hand, and
beckoned him away.

146 THE CHIMES

FOURTH QUARTER

SomE new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the Bells,

some faint impression of the ringing of the Chimes; some

giddy consciousness of having seen the swarm of phantoms

reproduced and reproduced until the recollection of them

lost itself in the confusion of their numbers; some hurried
knowledge, how conveyed to him he knew not, that more>
years had passed; and Trotty, with the Spirit of the child
attending him, stood looking on at mortal company.

Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable
company. They were but two, but they were red enough
forten. They sat before a bright fire, with a small low table
between them; and unless the fragrance of hot tea and
muffins lingered longer in that room than in most others,
the table had geen service very lately. But all the cups
and saucers being clean, and in their proper places in the
corner cupboard; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its
usual nook, and spreading its four idle fingers out, as if it
wanted to be measured for a glove; there remained no other
visible tokens of the meal just finished, than such as purred
and washed their whiskers in the person of the basking cat,
and glistened in the gracious, not to say the greasy, faces of
her patrons.

This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a fair
division of the fire between them, and sat looking at the
glowing sparks that dropped into the grate; now nodding
off into a doze; now waking up again when some hot frag-
ment, larger than the rest, came rattling down, as if the fire
were coming with it.

It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however; for
it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the panes of
window glass in the door, and on the curtain half drawn
across them, but in the little shop beyond. A little shop,
quite crammed and choked with the abundance of its stock;
a perfectly voracious little shop, with a maw as accommodat-
ing and full as any shark’s. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap,
pickles, matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats,
boys’ kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-stones,
salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard,
mushroom-ketchup, stay-laces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks,

FOURTH QUARTER 147

eggs, and slate-pencil: everything was fish that came to the
net of this greedy little shop, and all these articles were in
its net. How many other kinds of petty merchandise were
there, it would be difficult to say; but balls of packthread,
ropes of onions, pounds of candles, cabbage nets, and brushes
hung in bunches from the ceiling, like extraordinary fruit;
while various odd canisters emitting aromatic smells, estab-
lished the veracity of the inscription over the outer door,
which informed the public that the keeper of this little shop
was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff.

Glancing at such of these items as were visible in the
shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of two
smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the shop itself,
as though its plethora sat heavy on their lungs; and
glancing, then, at one of the two faces by the parlour-fire,
Trotty had small difficulty in recognising in the stout old
lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always inclined to corpulency,
even in the days when he had known her as established in
the general line, and having a small balance against him in
her books.

The features of her companion were less easy to him.
The great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to
hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that seemed to
expostulate with themselves for sinking deeper and deeper
into the yielding fat of the soft face; the nose afflicted with
that disordered action of its functions which is generally
termed, The Snuffles; the short, thick throat and labouring
chest, with other beauties of the like description; though
calculated to impress the memory, Trotty could at first
allot to nobody he had ever known: and yet he had some
recollection of them too. At length in Mrs. Chickenstalker’s
partner in the general line, and in the crooked and eccentric
line of life, he recognised the former porter of Sir Joseph
Bowley; an apoplectic innocent, who had connected him-
self in Trotty’s mind with Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago,
by giving him admission to the mansion where he had
confessed his obligations to that lady, and drawn on his
unlucky head such grave reproach.

Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after the
changes he had seen; but association is very strong some-
times; and he looked involuntarily behind the parlour-door,
where the accounts of credit customers were usually kept in
chalk. There was no record of hisname. Some names were

148 THE CHIMES

there, but they were strange to him, and infinitely fewer —
than of old; from which he augured that the porter was an
advocate of ready money transactions, and on coming into
the business had looked pretty sharp after the Chicken-
stalker defaulters.

So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the youth
and promise of his blighted child, that it was a sorrow to
him, even to have no place in Mrs. Chickenstalker’s ledger.

“‘ What sort of a night is it, Anne? ” inquired the former
porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his legs before
the fire, and rubbing as much of them as his short arms
could reach; with an air that added, “ Here I am if it’s
bad, and I don’t want to go out if it’s good.”

‘‘ Blowing and sleeting hard,” returned his wife; “‘ and
threatening snow. Dark. And very cold.”

“Tm glad to think we had muffins,” said the former
porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience at rest.
“Tt’s a sort of night that’s meant for muffins. Likewise
crumpets. Also Sally Lunns.”

The former porter mentioned each successive kind of
eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his good actions.
Atter which, he rubbed his fat legs as before, and jerking
them at the knees to get the fire upon the yet unroasted
parts, laughed as if somebody had tickled him.

“* You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear,”’ observed his wife.

The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker.

“No,” said Tugby. ‘No. Not particular. I’m a
little elewated. The muffins came so pat!”

With that, he chuckled until he was black in the face;
and had so much ado to become any other colour, that his
fat legs took the strangest excursions into the air. Nor were
they reduced to anything like decorum until Mrs. Tugby had
thumped him violently on the back, and shaken him as if
he were a great bottle.

“Good gracious, goodness lord-a-mercy bless and save
the man!” cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror. ‘‘ What’s he
doing! ”’

Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated that he
found himself a little elewated.

“Then don’t be so again, that’s a dear good soul,”’ said
Mrs. Tugby, “if you don’t want to frighten me to death,
with your struggling and fighting! ”’

Mr. Tugby said he wouldn’t, but his whole existence

FOURTH QUARTER 149

was a fight; in which, if any judgment might be founded
on the constantly-increasing shortness of his breath, and
the deepening purple of his face, he was always getting the
worst of it.

“So it’s blowing and sleeting, and threatening snow;
and is dark, and very cold: is it, my dear?” said Mr.
Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting to the cream and
marrow of his temporary elevation.

“ Hard weather indeed,” returned his wife, shaking her
head.

“Aye, aye! Years,” said Mr. Tugby, “are like
Christians in that respect. Some of ’em die hard; some
of ’em die easy. This one hasn’t many days to run, and
is making a fight for it. I like him all the better. There’s
a customer, my love! ”

Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had already
risen.

“ Now then! ” said that lady, passing out into the little
shop. ‘‘ What’s wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon, sir,
I’m sure. I didn’t think it was you.”

She made this apology to a gentleman in black, who,
with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked loungingly
on one side, and his hands in his pockets, sat down astride
on the table-beer barrel, and nodded in return.

“ This is a bad business upstairs, Mrs. Tugby,” said the
gentleman. ‘ The man can’t live.”

“Not the back-attic can’t!” cried Tugby, coming out
into the shop to join the conference.

“The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,” said the gentleman, “ is
coming downstairs fast; and will be below the basement
very soon.”

Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded the
barrel with his knuckles for the depth of beer, and having
found it, played a tune upon the empty part.

“The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,”’ said the gentleman:
Tugby having stood in silent consternation for some time:
“is Going.”

“Then,” said Tugby, turning to his wife, “‘ he must Go,
you know, before he’s Gone.”

“I don’t think you can move him,” said the gentleman,
shaking his head. “I wouldn’t take the responsibility of
saying it could be done myself. You had better leave him
where he is. He can’t live long.”

150 THE CHIMES

“ It’s the only subject,” said Tugby, bringing the butter-
scale down upon the counter with a crash, by weighing his
fist on it, ‘‘ that we’ve ever had a word upon; she and me;
and look what it comes to! He’s going to die here, after
all. Going to die upon the premises. Going to die in our
house! ”

“ And where should he have died, Tugby!”’ cried his wife.

“In the workhouse,” he returned. ‘‘ What are work-
houses made for? ”’

‘Not for that,’’ said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy.
“Not for that. Neither did I marry you for that. Don’t
think it, Tugby. I won’t have it. I-won’t allowit. I'd
be separated first, and never see your face again. When
my widow’s name stood over that door, as it did for many,
many years: this house being known as Mrs. Chicken-
stalker’s far and wide, and never known but to its honest
credit and its good report: when my widow’s name stood
over that door, Tugby, I knew him as a handsome, steady,
manly, independent youth; I knew her as the sweetest-
looking, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever saw; I knew her
father (poor old creetur, he fell down from the steeple
walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for the simplest,
hardest-working, childest-hearted man, that ever drew the
breath of life; and when I turn them out of house and home,
may angels turn me out of Heaven. As they would!
And serve me right! ”’

Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one
before the changes which had come to pass, seemed to shine
out of her as she said these words; and when she dried her
eyes, and shook her head and her handkerchief at Tugby
with an expression of firmness which it was quite clear was
not to be easily resisted, Trotty said, ‘“ Bless her! Bless
her!”

Then he listened with a panting heart for what should
follow. Knowing nothing yet, but that they spoke of Meg.

If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour, he
more than balanced that account by being not a little de-
pressed in the shop, where he now stood staring at his wife
without attempting a reply; secretly conveying, however
— either in a fit of abstraction or as a precautionary measure
—all the money from the till into his own pockets as he
looked at her.

The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who appeared

FOURTH QUARTER 151

to be some autnorised medical attendant upon the poor,
was far too well accustomed, evidently, to little differences
of opinion between man and wife, to interpose any remark
in this instance. He sat softly whistling, and turning little
drops of beer out of the tap upon the ground, until there was
a perfect calm, when he raised his head, and said to Mrs.
Tugby, late Chickenstalker—

“There’s something interesting about the woman,
even now. How did she come to marry him? ”

“Why, that,” said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him,
‘is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You see they
kept company, she and Richard, many years ago. When
they were a young and beautiful couple, everything was
settled, and they were to have been married on a New Year’s
Day. But, somehow, Richard got it into his head, through
what the gentleman told him, that he might do better, and
that he’d soon repent it, and that she wasn’t good enough
for him, and that a young man of spirit had no business to
be married. And the gentlemen frightened her, and made
her melancholy and timid of his deserting her; and of her
children coming to the gallows; and of its being wicked
to be man and wife; and a good deal more of it. And in
short they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one
another was broken, and so at last was the match. But the
fault was his. She would have married him, sir, joyfully.
I’ve seen her heart swell, many times afterwards, when he
passed her in a proud and careless way; and never dida
woman grieve more truly for a man than she for Richard
when he first went wrong.”

“Oh! he went wrong, did he?” said the gentleman,
pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to
peep down into the barrel through the hole.

“Well, sir, I don’t know that he rightly understood
himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by their
having broke with one another; and that but for being
ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for being un-
certain too, how she might take it, he’d have gone through
any suffering or trial to have had Meg’s promise and Meg’s
hand again. That’s my belief. He never said So; more’s
the pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all
the fine resources that were to be so much better for him than
the Home he might have had. He lost his looks, his character,
his health, his strength, his friends, his work: everything! ”

152 THE CHIMES

“ He didn’t lose everything, Mrs. Tugby,” returned the
gentleman, “ because he gained a wife; and I want to know
how he gained her.”

“ T’m coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went on for
years and years; he sinking lower and lower, she enduring,
poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life away. At last,
he was so cast down and cast out, that no one would employ
or notice him, and doors were shut upon him, go where he >
would. Applying from place to place, and door to door; —
and coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who
had often and often tried him (he was a good workman to
the very end). That gentleman, who knew his history,
said, ‘I believe you are incorrigible; there is only one
person in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you;
ask me to trust you no more until she tries to do it.’ Some-
thing like that in his anger and vexation.”

“Ah!” said the gentleman. ‘“ Well?”

“ Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it
was so; said it ever had been; and made a prayer to her to
save him.”

*“‘ And she—Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby.”

“She came to me that night to ask me about living
here. ‘ What he was once to me,’ she said, ‘ is buried in a
grave; side by side with what I was to him. But I have
thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of
saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you
remember her) who was to have been married on a New
Year’s Day; and for the love of her Richard.’ And she
said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted
to him, and she never could forget that. So they were
married; and when they came home here, and I saw them,
I hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they were
young, may not often fulfil themselves, as they did in this
ease, or I wouldn’t be the makers of them for a Mine of
Gold.”

The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself,
observing—

“I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were
married? ”

“I don’t think he ever did that,” said Mrs. Tugby,
shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. ‘He went on
better for a short time; but his habits were too old and
strong to be got rid off; he soon fell back a little; and was

FOURTH QUARTER 153

falling fast back, when his illness came so strong upon him.
I think he has always felt for her. Iam sure hehas. I’ve
seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her
hand; and I have heard him call her ‘ Meg,’ and say it was
her nineteenth birthday. There he has been lying now,
these weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she
has not been abie to do her old work; and by not being able
to be regular, she has lost it, even if she could have done it.
How they have lived, I hardly know! ”

“ I know,” muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till, and
round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with
immense intelligence. ‘‘ Like Fighting Cocks!”

He was interrupted by a cry—a sound of lamentation
—from the upper storey of the house. The gentleman
moved hurriedly to the door.

“ My friend,” he said, looking back, “ you needn’t dis-
cuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has spared
you that trouble, I believe.” '

Saying so, he ran upstairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby;
while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure;
being rendered more than commonly short-winded by the
weight of the till, in which there had been an inconvenient
quantity of copper. Trotty, with the child beside him,
floated up the staircase like mere air.

“ Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!” He heard
the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he
ascended. ‘“ Learn it, from the creature dearest to your
heart! ”

It was over. It was over. And this was she, her
father’s pride and joy! This haggard, wretched woman,
weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and pressing
to her breast, and hanging down her head upon, an infant.
Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and how poor an
infant? Who can tell how dear!

“Thank God!” cried Trotty, holding up his folded
hands. ‘Oh, God be thanked! She loves’ her
child! ”

The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or indifferent
to such scenes, than that he saw them every day, and knew
that they were figures of no moment in the Filer sums—mere
scratches in the working of those calculations—laid his
hand upon the heart that beat no more, and listened for the
breath, and said, “ His pain is over. It’s better as it is.”

154 THE CHIMES

Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby
tried philosophy.

“ Come, come! ” he said, with his hands in his pockets,
“you mustn’t give way, you know. That won't do. You
must fight up. What would have become of me, if J had
given way when I was porter; and we had as many as six
runaway carriage-doubles at our door in one night! But I
fell back upon my strength of mind, and didn’t open it!”

Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, ‘‘ Follow her!”
He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from him,
passing through the air. “ Follow her!” it said. And
vanished.

He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked
up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened for one
note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted round the child:
so wan, so prematurely old, so dreadful in its gravity, so
plaintive in its feeble, mournful, miserable wail. He almost
worshipped it. He clung to it as her only safeguard; as
the last unbroken link that bound her to endurance. He
set his father’s hope and trust on the frail baby; watched
her every look upon it as she held it in her arms; and cried
a thousand times, ‘‘ She loves it! God be thanked, she
loves it! ”’

He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to her
when her grudging husband was asleep, and all was still;
encourage her, shed tears with her, set nourishment before
her. He saw the day come, and the night again; the day,
the night; the time go by; the house of death relieved of
death! the room left to herself and to the child; he heard
it moan and cry; he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and
when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to con-
sciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack;
but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with it.
Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and
soul, and had its Being knitted up with hers as when she
carried it unborn.

All this time, she was in want; languishing away, in
dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she
wandered here and there, in quest of occupation; and with
its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did
any work for any wretched sum: a day and night of labour
for as many farthings as there were figures on the dial. If
she had quarrelled with it; if she had neglected it; if she had

FOURTH QUARTER 155

looked upon it with a moment’s hate; if, in the frenzy of
an instant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She
loved it always.

She told no one of her extremity, and wandered abroad
in the day lest she should be questioned by her only friend:
for any help she received from her hands, occasioned fresh
disputes between the good woman and her husband; and
it was new bitterness to be the daily cause of strife and dis-
cord, where she owed so much.

She loved it still. She loved it more and more. Buta
change fell on the aspect of her love. One night.

She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking
to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly opened, and
a man looked in.

“ For the last time,” he said.

* William Fern! ”’

“ For the last time.”’

He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers.

“ Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn’t finish it,
without a parting word with you. Without one grateful
word.”

“What have you done?” she asked: regarding him
with terror.

He looked at her, but gave no answer.

After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand,
as if he set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and
said—

“It’s long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as
fresh in my memory as ever ’twas. We little thought,
then,” he added, looking round, “‘ that we should ever meet
like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it in my
arms. Let me hold your child.”

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he
trembled as he took it, from head to foot.

“Is it a girl?”

oe Ves 74

He put his hand before its little face.

“See how weak I’m grown, Margaret, when I want the
courage to look at it! Let her be a moment. I won’t hurt
her. It’s long ago, but—What’s her name? ”

“ Margaret,” she answered, quickly.

“Tm glad of that,” he said. ‘“ I’m glad of that.”

He seemed to breathe more freely; and after pausing

156 THE CHIMES

for an instant, took away his hand, and looked upon the
infant’s face. But covered it again, immediately.

“Margaret! ”’ he said; and gave her back the child.
“It’s Lilian’s.”

“ Lilian’s! ”

“| held the same face in my arms when Lilian’s mother
died and left her.”

““ When Lilian’s mother died and left her!” she re-
peated wildly. ‘

‘“* How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon
meso? Margaret!”

She sank down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her
breast and wept over it. Sometimes she released it from
her embrace, to lock anxiously in its face: then strained
it to her bosom again. At those times, when she gazed upon
it, then it was that something fierce and terrible began to
mingle with her love. Then it was that her old father
quailed.

“Follow her!’’ was sounded through the house.
“‘ Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart! ”’

** Margaret,” said Fern, bending over her, and kissing
her upon the brow: ‘I thank you for the last time. Good-
night. Good-bye. Put your hand in mine, and tell me
you'll forget me from this hour, and try to think the end of
me was here.’’

“ What have you done?” she asked again.

“There'll be a Fire to-night,” he said, removing from
her. “ There’ll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark
nights, East, West, North, and South. When you see the
distant sky red, they’Il be blazing. When you see the distant
sky red, think of me no more! or if you do, remember what
a Hell was lighted up inside of me, and think you see its
Flames reflected in the clouds. Good-night. Good-bye! ”

She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down
stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger,
cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the live-
long night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at in-
tervals, “ like Lilian, when her mother died and left her! ”
Why was her step so quick, her eye so wild, her love so
flerce and terrible, whenever she repeated those words?

“ But it is Love,” said Trotty. “It is Love. She'll
never cease to love it. My poor Meg! ”

She dressed the child next morning with unusual care

FOURTH QUARTER 157

—ah vain expenditure of care upon such squalid robes!—
and once more tried to find some means of life. It was the
last day of the Old Year. She tried till night, and never
broke her fast. She tried in vain.

She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the
snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense the
public charity (the lawful charity; not that, once preached
upon a Mount), to call them in, and question them, and say
to this one, “‘ go to such a place,” to that one, ‘‘ come next
week; ” to make a foot-ball of another wretch, and pass him
here and there, from hand to hand, from house to house,
until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and
robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose
claims allowed of no delay. MHere, too, she failed. She
loved her child and wished to have it lying on her breast.
And that was quite enough.

It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when,
pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived out-
side the house she called her home. She was so faint and
giddy, that she saw no one standing in the doorway until she
was close upon it, and about to enter. Then she recognised
the master of the house, who had so disposed himself—with
his person it was not difficult—as to fill up the whole
entry.

“Oh! ” he said, softly, “ you have come back? ”

She looked at the child, and shook her head.

“Don’t you think you have lived here long enough
without paying any rent? Don’t you think that, without
any money, you’ve been a pretty constant customer at this
shop, now? ” said Mr. Tugby.

She repeated the same mute appeal.

“Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,”’ he said.
“And suppose you provide yourself with another lodging.
Come! Don’t you think you could manage it? ”

She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-
morrow.

‘« Now I see what you want,” said Tugby; “ and what
you mean. You know there are two parties in this house
about you, and you delight in setting ’em by the ears. [
don’t want any quarrels; I’m speaking softly to avoid a
quarrel; but if you don’t go away, I'll speak out loud, and
you shall cause words high enough to please you. But you
shan’t come in. -That I am determined.”

158 THE CHIMES

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a
sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering distance.
“This is the last night of an Old Year: and I won’t
carry ill blood and quarrellings and disturbances into a New
one, to please you nor anybody else,” said Tugby, who was
quite a retail Friend and Father. “I wonder you ain’t
ashamed of yourself, to carry such practices into a New
Year. If you haven’t any business in the world, but to be
always giving way, and always making disturbances between
man and wife, you’d be better out ofit. Go along with you.”

‘* Follow her! To desperation! ”

Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he
saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing where she
went, down the dark street.

“‘ She loves it! ”’ he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for
her. ‘“‘ Chimes! she loves it still! ”

“Follow her!’”’ The shadows swept upon the track she
had taken, like a cloud.

He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he
looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and terrible
expression mingling with her love, and kindling in her eyes.
He heard her say, ‘‘ Like Lilian! To be changed like
Lilian! ’”’ and her speed redoubled.

Oh, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or
sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a brain on
fire! For any gentle image of the Past, to rise before her!

“ Twas her father! I was her father! ” cried the old man,
stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above.
“Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go?
Turn her back! I was her father! ”

But they only pointed to her as she hurried on; and
said, ‘‘ To desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest
to your heart!”

A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of
breath expended in those words. He seemed to take them
in at every gasp he drew. They were everywhere, and not
to be escaped. And still she hurried on: the same light in
her eyes, the same words in her mouth: “ Like Lilian! To
be changed like Lilian! ”

All at once she stopped.

“ Now, turn her back!” exclaimed the old man, tearing

his white hair. “My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great
Father, turn her back! ”

FOURTH QUARTER 159

In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm.
With her fevered hands she smoothed its limbs, composed
its face, arranged its mean attire. In her wasted arms she
folded it, as though she never would resign it more. And
with her dry lips, kissed it in a final pang, and last long
agony of love.

Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it
there, within her dress, next to her distracted heart, she set
its sleeping face against her, closely, steadily, against her,
and sped onward to the river.

To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night
sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had
sought a refuge there before her. Where scattered lights
upon the banks gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches
that were burning there, to show the way to Death. Where
no abode of living people cast its shadow on the deep, im-
penetrable, melancholy shade.

To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate
footsteps tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters
running to the sea. He tried to touch her as she passed
him, going down to its dark level; but the wild distempered
form, the fierce and terrible love, the desperation that had
left all human check or hold behind, swept by him like the
wind.

He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink,
before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and
in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering
above them.

““T have learnt it!’’ cried the old man. ‘‘ From the
creature dearest to my heart! Oh, save her, save her!”

He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it!
As the words escaped his lips he felt his sense of touch return,
and knew that he detained her.

The figures looked down steadfastly upon him.

“IT have learnt it,’ cried the old man. ‘ Oh, have
mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so young
and good, I slandered nature in the breasts of mothers
rendered desperate! Pity my presumption, wickedness,
and ignorance, and save her.”

He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still.

“‘ Have mercy on her! ” he exclaimed, ‘‘ as one in whom
this dreadful crime has sprung from Love perverted; from
the strongest, deepest Love we fallen creatures know!

160 * THE CHIMES

Think what her misery must have been, when such seed bears, |
such fruit. Heaven meant her to be Good. There is no
loving mother on the earth who might not come to this, if
such a life had gone before. Oh, have mercy on my child,
who even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies
herself, and perils her Immortal Soul, to save it! *

She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength
was like a giant’s.

“‘ I see the spirit of the Chimes among you!” cried the
old man, singling out the child, and speaking in some in-
spiration, which their looks conveyed to him. “I know
that our Inheritance is held in store for us by Time. I
know there is a Sea of Time to rise one day, before which
all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away like
leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust
and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the Good
in one another. I have learnt it from the creature dearest
to my heart. I clasp her in my arms again. Oh Spirits,
merciful and good, I take your lesson to my breast along
with her! Oh Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful!”

He might have said more, but the Bells; the old familiar
Bells; his own dear, constant, steady friends, the Chimes;
began to ring the joy-peals for a New Year, so lustily, so
merrily, so happily, so gaily, that he leapt upon his feet, and
broke the spell that bound him.

*“And whatever you do, father,” said Meg, ‘‘ don’t eat
tripe again, without asking some doctor whether it’s likely
to agree with you; for how you have been going on, Good
gracious!”

She was working with her needle, at the little table by
the tire; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her
wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and youthful, so
full of beautiful promise, that he uttered a great cry as if it
were an angel in his house; then flew to clasp her in his
arms.

But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen
on the hearth; and somebody came rushing in between them.

“Nol” cried the voice of this same somebody; a
generous and jolly voice it was! ‘‘ Not even you. Not
even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New Year is mine.
Mine! I have been waiting outside the house, this hour,
to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, a
happy year! A life of happy years, my darling wife! ”

FOURTH QUARTER 161

And Richard smothered her with kisses.

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after
this. I don’t care where you have lived or what you have
seen; you never in your life saw anything at all approaching
him! He sat down in his chair and beat his knees and
cried; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and
laughed; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and
laughed and cried together; he got out of his chair and
hugged Meg; he got out of his chair and hugged Richard;
he got out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he
kept running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face
between his hands and kissing it, going from her backwards
not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a figure ina
magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly
sitting himself down in this chair, and never stopping in it for
one single moment; being—that’s the truth—beside him-
self with joy.

“ And to-morrow’s your wedding-day, my Pet!” cried
Trotty. ‘‘ Your real, happy wedding-day! ”

“To-day!” cried Richard, shaking hands with him. ‘‘To-
day. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!”

They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they
WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious,
deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal;
made by no common founder; when had they ever Chimed
like that before!

“But to-day, my Pet,’’ said Trotty. ‘‘ You and
Richard had some words to-day.”

‘Because he’s such a bad fellow, father,” said Meg.
* Ain’t you, Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man!
-He’d have made no more of speaking his mind to that great
Alderman, and putting him down I don’t know where, than
he would of 4

“ Kissing Meg,” suggested Richard. Doing it too!

“No. Not a bit more,” said Meg. ‘‘ But I wouldn’t
let him, father. Where would have been the use?”

“ Richard, my boy!” cried Trotty. ‘‘ You was turned
up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be till you die!
But you were crying by the fire to-night, my Pet, when I
came home! Why did you cry by the fire? ”

“TI was thinking of the years we’ve passed together,
father. Only that. And thinking you might miss me, and
be lonely.”

12—F

162 THE CHIMES

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again,
when the child, who had been awakened by the noise, came
running in half-dressed.

“Why, here she is!” cried Trotty, catching her up.
“‘ Here’s little Lilian! Hahaha! Here we are and here we
go! Oh here we are and here we go again! And here we
are and here we go! And Uncle Will too!’”’ Stopping in
his trot to greet him heartily. ‘‘ Oh Uncle Will, the Vision
that I’ve had to-night, through lodging you! Oh Uncle
Will, the obligations that you’ve laid me under, by your
coming, my good friend!”

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a Band of
Music burst into the room, attended by a flock of neighbours,
screaming, “‘A Happy New Year, Meg!” ‘“‘A Happy
Wedding!” ‘‘Many of ’em!” and other fragmentary
good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private
friend of Trotty’s) then stepped forward, and said—

“Trotty Veck, my boy! It’s got about, that your
daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There ain't a
soul that knows you that don’t wish you well, or that knows
her and don’t wish her well. Or that knows you both, and
don’t wish you bothall the happiness the New Year can bring.
And here we are, to play it in and dance it in, accordingly.”

Which was received with a general shout. The Drum
was rather drunk, by-the-bye; but never mind.

-

“What a happiness it is, I’m sure,” said Trotty, “ to be —

so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It’s all
along of my dear daughter. She deserves it! ’’

They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg and
Richard at the top); and the Drum was on the very brink
of leathering away with all his power; when a combination
of prodigious sounds was heard outside, and a good-
humoured comely woman of some fifty years of age, or there-
abouts, came running in, attended by a man bearing a stone
pitcher of terrific size, and closely followed by the marrow-
bones and cleavers, and the bells: not the Bells, but a port-
able collection, on a frame.

Trotty said, “ It’s Mrs. Chickenstalker!”’ and sat down,
and beat his knees again.

“ Married, and not tell me, Meg! ” cried the good woman.
“Never! I couldn’t rest on the last night of the Old Year
without coming to wish you joy. I couldn’t have done it,
Meg. Not if I had been bedridden. So here Iam; and as

FOURTH QUARTER 163

it’s New Year’s Eve, and the Eve of your wedding too,
my dear, I had a little flip made, and brought it with
me;*”

Mrs. Chickenstalker’s notion of a little flip, did honour to
her character. The pitcher steamed and smoked and
reeked like a volcano; and the man who had carried it, was
faint.

“Mrs. Tugby! ” said Trotty, who had been going round
and round her, in an ecstasy. “I should say, Chicken-
stalker—Bless your heart,and soul! A Happy New Year,
and many of ’em! Mrs. Tugby,” said Trotty when he had
saluted her; “‘ I should say, Chickenstalker—This is William
Fern and Lilian.”’

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale and
very red.

“Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire! ”
said she.

Her uncle answered, “‘ Yes,’’ and meeting hastily, they
exchanged some hurried words together; of which the
upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook him by both
hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek again, of her own free
will; and took the child to her capacious breast.

‘Will Fern!” said Trotty, pulling on his right hand
muffler. ‘‘ Not the friend that you was hoping to
rid 7 7%

“ Aye!” returned Will, putting a hand on each of
Trotty’s shoulders. ‘‘ And like to prove a’most as good a
friend, if that can be, as one I found.”

“Oh!” said Trotty. ‘‘ Please to play up there. Will
you have the goodness! ”

To the music of the band, the bells, the marrow-bones
and cleavers, all at once; and while the Chimes were yet in
lusty operation out of doors; Trotty, making Meg and
Richard second couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down the
dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since;
founded on his own peculiar trot.

Had Trotty dreamed? Or are his joys and sorrows, and
the actors in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the
teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now? If it be so,
oh Listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to bear in mind
the stern realities from which these shadows come; and in
your sphere—none is too wide, and none too limited for
such an end—endeavour to correct, improve, and soften

164 THE CHIMES

them. So may the New Year be a happy one to you,
happy to many more whose happiness depends on youl!
So may each year be happier than the last, and not the
meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful
share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
A FAIRY TALE OF HOME

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

CHIRP THE FIRST

TueE kettle began it! Don’t tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle
said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on
record to the end of time that she couldn’t say which of them
began it; but I say the Kettle did. I ought to know, I
hope? The Kettle began it, full five minutes by the little
waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner before the Cricket
uttered a chirp.

As if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and the con-
vulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right
and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn’t
mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the
Cricket joined in at all!

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows
that. I wouldn’t set my own opinion against the opinion
of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account
whatever. Nothing should induce me. But this is a
question of fact. And the fact is, that the Kettle began it,
at least five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of
being in existence. Contradict me; and I’ll say ten.

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have
proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain
consideration—if I am to tell a story I must begin at the
beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning,
without beginning at the Kettle?

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of
skill, you must understand, between the Kettle and the
Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came about.

Mrs. Peerybingle going out into the raw twilight, and
clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked
innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in
Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the Kettle
at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens;
and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle

167

168 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

was but short; she set the Kettle on the fire. In doing
which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for
the water—being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy,
slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate
through every kind of substance, patten rings included—
had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle’s toes, and even splashed her
legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason
too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in
point of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.

Besides, the Kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It
wouldn’t allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it
wouldn’t hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of
coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble,
a very Idiot of a Kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrel-
some; and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To
sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first
of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious
pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in—
down to the very bottom of the Kettle. And the hull of the
Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance
to coming out of the water, which the lid of that Kettle
employed against Mrs. Peerybingle before she gotit up again.

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then;
carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its
spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it
said, “‘ I won’t boil. Nothing shall induce me!”

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted
her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down
before the Kettle: laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze
uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Hay-
maker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have
thought he stood stock still before the Moorish Palace, and
nothing was in motion but the flame.

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms,
two to the second, all right and regular. But his sufferings
when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold;
and when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace,
and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a
spectral voice—or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs.

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring
noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite
subsided, that this terrified Haymaker became himself
again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these

CHIRP THE FIRST 169

rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in
their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of
men, but most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking
to invent them. For there is a popular belief that Dutch-
men love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower
selves; and they might know better than to leave their
clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely.

Now it was, you observe, that the Kettle began to spend
the evening. Now it was, that the Kettle, growing mellow
and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its
throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked
in the bud, as if it hadn’t quite made up its mind yet, to be
good company. Now it was, that after two or three such
vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off
all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so
cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed
the least idea of.

So plain, too! Bless you, you might have understood it
like a book—better than some books you and I could name,
perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light
cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then
hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven,
it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness,
that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and
the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid—such is the influence
of a bright example—performed a sort of jig, and clattered
like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known
the use of its twin brother.

That this song of the Kettle’s, was a song of invitation
and welcome to somebody out of doors; to somebody at
that moment coming on, towards the snug small home and
the crisp fire; there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peery-
bingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing, before the hearth.
It’s a dark night, sang the Kettle, and the rotten leaves are
lying by the way; and above, all is mist and darkness, and
below, all is mire and clay; and there’s only one relief in all
the sad and murky air; and I don’t know that it is one, for
it’s nothing but a glare of deep and angry crimson, where the
sun and wind together, set a brand upon the clouds for being
guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a
long dull streak of black; and there’s hoar-frost on the
finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn’t
water, and the water isn’t free; and you couldn’t say that

170 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

anything is what it ought to be; but he’s coming, coming,
coming!

And here, if you like, the Cricket pip chime in! with a
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of
chorus; with a voice, so astoundingly disproportionate to its
size, as compared with the Kettle; (size! you couldn’t See
it!) that if it had then and there burst itself like an over-
charged gun; if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and
chirruped its little body into fifty pieces: it would have
seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it
had expressly laboured.

The Kettle had had the last of its solo performance.
It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket
took first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped!
Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house,
and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a Star.
There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its
loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and
made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet
they went very well together, the Cricket and the Kettle.
The burden of the song was still the same; and louder,
louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.

The fair little listener; for fair she was, and young—
though something of what is called the dumpling shape;
but I don’t myself object to that—lighted a candle; glanced
at the Haymaker on the top of the clock, who was getting in
a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the
window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness,
but her own face imaged in the glass. And my opinion is
(and so would yours have been), that she might have looked
a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she
came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and
the Kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of
competition. The Kettle’s weak side clearly being that he
didn’t know when he was beat.

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp,
chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum—
m—m1! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great iop.
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum,
hum—m—m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no
idea of givingin. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than
ever. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady.
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum,

CHIRP THE FIRST - 171

hum, hum—m—m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at
last, they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry,
helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the Kettle
chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped
and the Kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both
hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or
mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But
of this, there is no doubt: that the Kettle and the Cricket,
at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalga-
mation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside
song of comfort, streaming into a ray of the candle that shone
out through the window; and a long way down the lane.
And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the
instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed
the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried,
“Welcome home, old fellow! Welcome home, my Boy!”

This end attained, the Kettle, being dead beat, boiled
over, and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went
running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart,
the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and
out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious
appearance of a Baby, there was soon the very What’s-his-
name to pay.

Where the Baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle
got hold of it in that flash of time, 7 don’t know. Buta live
Baby there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle’s arms; and a pretty
tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she
was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man,
much taller and much older than herself; who had to stoop
a long way down to kiss her. But she was worth the
trouble. Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have
done it.

“Oh goodness, John!” said Mrs. P. ‘“ What a state
you’re in with the weather! ”

He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The
thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied
thaw; and between the fog and fire together, there were
rainbows in his very whiskers.

“‘ Why, you see, Dot,”” John made answer, slowly, as he
unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed his
hands; ‘“it—it an’t exactly summer weather. So no

wonder.”
“I wish you rouldn’t call me Dot, John. [ don’t

172 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

like it,” said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly
showed she did like it, very much.

“Why, what else are you?” returned John, looking
down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a
squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. “‘ Adotand”
—here he glanced at the Baby—“ a dot and carry—I won't
say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke.
I don’t know as ever I was nearer.”

He was often near to something or other very clever,
by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest John.
This John, so heavy but so light of spirit; so rough upon the
surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick
within; so stolid, but so good! Oh, Mother Nature, give
thy children the true Poetry of Heart that hid itself in this
poor Carrier’s breast—he was but a Carrier, by the way—
and we can bear to have them talking Prose, and leading
lives of Prose; and bear to bless Thee for their company!

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and her
Baby in her arms: a very doll of a Baby: glancing with a
coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her
delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an
odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agree-
able manner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier.
It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness,
endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her slight need,
and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropri-
ate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how
Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the Baby,
took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this
grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open,
and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air.
Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier,
reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid Baby, checked
his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he
thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it
from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an
amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found
himself, one day, the father of a young canary.

“ An’t he beautiful, John? Don’t he look precious in his
sleep? ”

“Very precious,” said John. ‘Very much so. He
generally is asleep, an’t he?” *

“Lor, John? Good gracious no! ”

CHIRP THE FIRST 173

“Oh,” said John, pondering. “I thought his eyes was
generally shut. MHalloa! ”

“Goodness, John, how you startle one! ”

“It an’t right for him to turn ’em up in that way!”
said the astonished Carrier, “ is it? See how he’s winking
with both of ’em at once! and Jook at hismouth! why, he’s
gasping like a gold and silver fish! ”

“You don’t deserve to be a father, you don’t,” said Dot,
with all the dignity of an experienced matron. ‘“ But how
should you know what little complaints children are troubled
with, John! You wouldn’t so much as know their names,
you stupid fellow.”” And when she had turned the Baby
over in her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative,
she pinched her husband’s ear, laughing.

“No,” said John, pulling off his outer coat. ‘ It’s very
true, Dot. I don’t know much about it. I only know that
I’ve been fighting pretty stiffly with the Wind to-night.
It’s been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole
way home.”

““Poor old man, so it has!” cried Mrs. Peerybingle,
instantly becoming very active. ‘“‘ Here! Take the
precious darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use.
Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it; I could! Hie
then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the
tea first, John; and then IJ’ll heip you with the parcels like
a busy bee. ‘ How doth the little "—and all the rest of it,
you know, John. Did you ever learn ‘ how doth the little ’
when you went to school, John? ”’

““ Not to quite know it,” John returned. “ I was very
near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Dot. She had the blithest little
laugh you ever heard. ‘‘ What a dear old darling of a dunce
you are, John, to be sure! ”

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see
that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and
fro before the door and window, like a Will of the Wisp,
took due care of the horse; who was fatter than you would
quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his
birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling
that his attentions were due to the family in general, and
must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with
bewildering inconstancy: now describing a circle of short
barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at

174 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

the stable door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his
mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops;
now eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-
chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his
moist nose to her countenance; now exhibiting an obtrusive
interest in the Baby; now going round and round upon the
hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for
the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of
a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had
just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round
trot, to keep it.

“There! There’s the teapot, ready on the hob!”’ said
Dot, as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house.
“And there’s the cold knuckle of ham; and there’s the
butter; and there’s the crusty loaf, and all! MHere’s a
clothes-basket for the small parcels, John, if you’ve got any
there—where are you, John? Don’t let the dear child fall
under the grate, Tilly, whatever you do! ”

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting
the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and
surprising talent for getting this Baby into difficulties, and
had several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way
peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and straight shape,
this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to
be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her
shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. Her costume
was remarkable for the partial development on all possible
occasions of some flannel vestment of a singular structure;
also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a
corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead green. Being
always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and
absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her
mistress’s perfections and the Baby’s, Miss Slowboy, in her
little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal
honour to her head and to her heart; and though these did
less honour to the Baby’s head, which they were the occasionl
means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers,
stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still they
were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy’s constant astonish-
ment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in
such a comfortable home. For the maternal and paternal
Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had been
bred by public charity, a Foundling; which word, though

CHIRP THE FIRST . 175

only differing from Fondling by one vowel’s length, is very
different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing.

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her
husband; tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the
most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried
it); would have amused you, almost as much as it amused
him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for any-
thing I know! but, certainly, it now began to chirp again,
vehemently.

“ Heyday! ” said John, in his slow way. “ It’s merrier
than ever to-night, I think.”

“And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It
always has done so. To have a Cricket on the hearth is
the luckiest thing in all the world! ”

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the
thought into his head, that she was his Cricket in chief,
and he quite agreed with her. But it was probably one of
his narrow escapes, for he said nothing.

“The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John,
was on that night when you brought me home—when you
brought me to my new home here; its little mistress.
Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?”

Oh yes. John remembered. I should think so!

“Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so
full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you
would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect
(I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old head on
the shoulders of your foolish little wife.”

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then
the head, as though he would have said, No, No; he had
had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take
them as they were. And really he had reason. They
were very comely.

“‘It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so:
for you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most con-
siderate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. This
has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for
its sake! ”’

““ Why, so do I, then,” said the Carrier. ‘‘ So do I, Dot.”

“I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the
many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Some-
times, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and
down-hearted, John—before Baby was here, to keep me

176 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

company and make the house gay; when I have thought
how lonely you would be if I should die; how lonely I should
be, if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp,
Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of
another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before
whose coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream.
And when I used to fear—I did fear once, John; I was
very young, you know—that ours might prove to be an ill-
assorted marriage: I being such a child, and you more like
my guardian than my husband: and that you might not,
however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you
hoped and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, has
cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and
confidence. I was thinking of these things to-night, dear,
when I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for their
sake! ”

“‘And so do I,” repeated John. ‘‘ But Dot? J hope
and pray that I might learn to love you? How you talk!
I had learnt that, long before I brought you here to be the
Cricket’s little mistress, Dot!”

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up
at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him
something. Next moment, she was down upon her knees
before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy
with the parcels.

“There are not many of them to-night, John, but I
saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and though
they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so
we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you
have been delivering, I dare say, as you came along? ”

Oh yes, John said. A good many.

“Why what’s this round box? Heart alive, John, it’s
a wedding-cake! ”

“Leave a woman alone, to find out that,’ said John,
admiringly. ‘Now a man would never have thought of
it! whereas, it’s my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-
cake up in a tea-chest, or a turned-up bedstead, or a pickled
salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to
findit out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastry-cook’s.”

“And it weighs I don’t know what—wwhole hundred-
weights!”’ cried Dot, making a great demonstration of
trying to liftit. ‘ Whose is it, John? Where is it going? ”

“ Read the writing on the other side,” said John,

CHIRP THE FIRST 477

“Why, John! My Goodness, John! ”

“ Ah! who’d have thought it!” John returned.

“ You never mean to say,” pursued Dot, sitting on the
floor and shaking her head at him, “ that it’s Gruff and
Tackleton the toymaker? ”

John nodded.

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least.
Not in assent: in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing
up her lips the while with all their little force (they were
never made for screwing up; I am clear of that), and look-
ing the good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction.
Miss Slowboy, in the meantime, who had a mechanical
power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the
delectation of the Baby, with all the sense struck out of
them, and all the Nouns changed into the Plural number,
inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and
Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at
Pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know
the boxes when its fathers brought them homes; and so on.

“ And that is really to come about!” said Dot. “ Why,
she and I were girls at school together, John.”

He might have been thinking of her: or nearly thinking
of her, perhaps: as she was in that same school time. He
looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no
answer. :

‘* And he’s as old! As unlike her!—Why, how many
years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John? ”

“‘How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at
one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I
wonder!” replied John, good-humouredly, as he drew a
chair to the round table, and began at the cold ham. “ As
to eating, I eat but little; but that little I enjoy, Dot.”

Even this; his usual sentiment at meal times; one of
his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate,
and flatly contradicted him); awoke no smile in the face
of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing
the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never
once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the
dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed
in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and
John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with
- his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on
the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and burried

178 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

to her place behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence.
But not as she had laughed before. The manner, and the
music, were quite changed.

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room
was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

“So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?” she
said: breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had
devoted to the practical illustration of one part of his
favourite sentiment—certainly enjoying what he ate, if it
couldn’t be admitted that he ate but little. “So these are
all the parcels; are they, John?”

“That’s all,’ said John. ‘“‘ Why—no—I—” laying
down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. “I
declare—I’ve clean forgotten the old gentleman!”

“The old gentleman? ”’

“In the cart,” said John. ‘“ He was asleep, among the
straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly
remembered him, twice, since I came in; but he went out
of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! rouse up!
That’s my hearty!”

John said these latter words, outside the door, whither
he had hurried with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference
to The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified
imagination certain associations of a religious nature with
the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the
low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirts of
her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed the
doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made
a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument
within her reach. This instrument happening to be the
Baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the
sagacity of Boxerrather tended to increase; forthat good dog,
more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been
watching the old gentleman in his sleep lest he should walk
off with a few young poplar trees that were tied up behind
the cart; and he still attended on him very closely; Worry-
ing his gaiters, in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons.

“You're such an undeniable good sleeper, Sir,’ said
John, when tranquillity was restored; in the meantime
the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless,
in the centre of the room; “ that I have half a mind to ask
you where the other six are: only that would be a joke, and

CHIRP THE FIRST i793

I know I should spoil it. Very near, though,’’ murmured
the Carrier, with a chuckle; ‘ very near!”

The Stranger, who had long white hair; good features,
singularly bold and well defined for an old man; and dark,
bright, penetrating eyes; looked round with a smile, and
saluted the Carrier’s wife by gravely inclining his head.

His garb was very quaint and odd—a long, long way
behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his
hand he held a great brown club or walking stick; and
striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a
chair. On which he sat down, quite composedly.

“There!” said the Carrier, turning to his wife. ‘ That’s
the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a
milestone. And almost as deaf.’

“Sitting in the open air, John! ”

“In the open air,’ replied the Carrier, “ just at dusk.
‘Carriage Paid,’ he said; and gave me eighteenpence.
Then he got in. And there he is.”

“ He’s going, John, I think! ”

Not at all. He was only going to speak.

“‘ Tf you please, I was to be left till called for,’”’ said the
Stranger, mildly. ‘‘ Don’t mind me.”

With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his
large pockets, and a book from another; and leisurely
began to read. Making no more of Boxer than if he had
been a house lamb!

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity.
The Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter
to the former, said:

““ Your daughter, my good friend? ”

“ Wife,”’ returned John.

“‘ Niece? ” said the Stranger.

“ Wife,” roared John.

** Indeed? ” observed the Stranger. ‘‘ Surely? Very
young!”

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But,
before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted
himself, to say:

“Baby, yours? ”’
John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer

in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking-trumpet.
Galt?
*‘ Bo-o-oy! ” roared John.

180 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

“ Also very young, eh?”

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. ‘“‘ Two months and
three da-ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ag-o! Took very
fine-ly! Considered by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful
chi-ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months
o-old! Takes notice in a way quite won-der-full! May
seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready! ”

Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking
these short sentences into the old man’s ear until her pretty
face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a
stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with
a melodious cry of Ketcher, Ketcher—which sounded like
some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze—per-
formed some cow-like gambols round that all unconscious
Innocent.

“‘ Hark! He’s called for, sure enough,’ said John,
“ There’s somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.”

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from
without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that
any one could lift if he chose—and a good many people did
choose, I can tell you; for all kinds of neighbours liked to
have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he
was no great talker for the matter of that. Being opened,
it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-
faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat
from the sack-cloth covering of some old box, for when he
turned to shut the door and keep the weather out, he dis-
closed upon the back of that garment, the inscription G & T
in large black capitals. Also the word GLASS in bold
characters.

“ Good-evening, John!” said the little man. ‘ Good-
evening, Mum. Good-evening, Tilly. Good-evening, Unbe-
known. How’s Baby,Mum? Boxer’s pretty well, [hope? ”

“All thriving, Caleb,” replied Dot. ‘I am sure you
need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.”

“And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,”
said Caleb.

He didn’t look at her, though; for he had a wandering and
thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself
into some other time and place, no matter what he said:
a description which will equally apply to his voice. :

“Or at John for another,” said Caleb. “ Or at Tilly
as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.” ;

CHIRP THE FIRST 181

“‘ Busy just now, Caleb? ” asked the Carrier.

“Why, pretty well, John,” he returned, with the
distraught air of a man who was casting about for the
Philosopher’s stone at least. ‘ Pretty much so. There’s
rather a run on Noah’s Arks at present. I could have
wished to improve upon the Family, but I don’t see how it’s
to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to one’s
mind to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and
which was Wives. Flies an’t on that scale neither, as
compared with elephants, you know. Ah! well! Have
you got anything in the parcel line for me, John?”

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had
taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and
paper, a tiny flower-pot.

“There it is!”’ he said, adjusting it with great care.
“ Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of Buds!”

Caleb’s dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him.

“Dear, Caleb,” said the Carrier. ‘‘ Very dear at this
Season.”

“ Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever
it cost,” returned the little man. ‘‘ Anything else, John? ”
*‘ A small box,” replied the Carrier. ‘‘ Here you are!”

“** For Caleb Plummer,’ ” said the little man, spelling
out the direction. ‘‘‘ With Cash.’ With Cash, John?
I don’t think it’s for me.”

“With care,’ returned the Carrier, looking over his
shoulder. ‘‘ Where do you make out cash? ”’

“Oh! Tobesure!” said Caleb. “ It’sallright. With
care! Yes, yes; that’s mine. It might have been with
cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas
had lived, John. You loved him like a son, didn’t you?
You needn’t say you did. J know, of course. ‘ Caleb
Plummer. With care.’ Yes, yes, it’s all right. It’s a box
of doll’s eyes for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her
own sight in a box, John.”

“ T wish it was, or could be! ” cried the Carrier.

“ Thankee,” said the little man. ‘“* You speak very
hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls;
and them a staring at her, so bold, all day long! That’s
where it cuts. What’s the damage, John?”

“ll damage you,” said John, “if you inquire. Dot!

Very near? ”
“Well! it’s like you to say so,” observed the little

182 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

man. “It’s your kind way. Let me see. I think that’s
all.”

“ T think not,” said the Carrier. ‘‘ Try again.”

“Something for our Governor, eh?” said Caleb, after
pondering a little while. ‘‘To be sure. That’s what I
came for; but my head’s so running on them Arks and
things! He hasn’t been here, has he? ”

“Not he,” returned the Carrier. “ He’s too busy,
courting.”

“ He’s coming round, though,” said Caleb; ‘‘ for he told
me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it
was ten to one he’d take me up. I had better go, by-the-
bye.— You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer’s
tail, Mum, for half a moment, could you? ”

“Why, Caleb! what a question! ”

“Oh, never mind, Mum,” said the little man. ‘‘ He
mightn’t like it perhaps. There’s a small order just come
in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to
Natur’ as Icould, forsixpence. That’sall, Nevermind, Mum.”

It happened opportunely that Boxer, without receiving
the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal.
But as this implied the approach of some new visitor,
Caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more con-
venient season, shouldered the round box, and teok a hurried
leave. He might have spared himself the trouble, for he
met with the visitor upon the threshold.

“Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take
you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More
of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day!
Better too, if possible! And younger,’’ mused the speaker,
in a low voice; ‘ that’s the Devil of it.”

“T should be astonished at your paying compliments,
Mr. Tackleton,” said Dot, not with the best grace in the
world; ‘‘ but for your condition.”

“You know all about it, then? ”

““T have got myself to believe it, somehow,” said Dot.

“ After a hard struggle, I suppose? ”

*"Very.”

Tackleton the Toy merchant, pretty generally known
as Gruff and Tackleton—for that was the firm, though Grufl
had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and
as some said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning.
in the business—Tackleton, the Toy merchant, was a mar

CHIRP THE FIRST 183

whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents
and Guardians. If they had made him a Money-Lender,
or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff’s Officer, or a Broker, he
might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and after
having had the full-run of himself in ill-natured transactions,
might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a
little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing
in the peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic
Ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was
their implacable enemy. He despised all toys; wouldn’t
have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice,
to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper
farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised
lost lawyers’ consciences, movable old ladies who darned
stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock-
in-trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed
Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers
who wouldn’t lie down, and were perpetually flying forward,
to stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly
revelled. They were his only relief and safety-valve.
He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a
Pony-nightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost
money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up
Goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the Powers of
Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-
fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of
Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no
painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his
artistes, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the
countenances of those monsters, that was safe to destroy
the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages
of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer
Vacation.

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in all
other things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that with-
in the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of
his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly
pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit
and as agreeable a companion as ever stood in a pair of bull-
headed looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops.

Still, Tackleton, the Toy merchant, was going to be
married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married.
And to a young wife too; a beautiful young wife.

184 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

He didn’t look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in
the Carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw
in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose,
and his hands stuck down into the bottoms of his pockets,
and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned self peering out of
one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated
essence of any number of ravens. But a Bridegroom he
designed to be.

“Tn three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last day
of the first month in the year. That’s my wedding-day,”’
said Tackleton.

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open,
and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut
was always the expressive eye? I don’t think I did.

* That’s my wedding-day,” said Tackleton, rattling his
money.

““ Why, it’s our wedding-day too,”’ exclaimed the Carrier.

‘““Ha, hal” laughed Tackleton. ‘‘ Odd! You’re just
such another couple. Just!’’

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion
is not to be described. Whatnext? His imagination would
compass the possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps.
The man was mad.

“T say! A word with you,’ murmured Tackleton,
nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little
apart. ‘* You'll come to the wedding? We're in the same
boat, you know.”

“ How in the same boat? ”’ inquired the Carrier.

“A little disparity, you know,” said Tackleton, with
another nudge. ‘‘ Come and spend an evening with us,
beforehand.”

“Why?” demanded John, astonished at this pressing
hospitality.

“Why?” returned the other. ‘“ That’s a new way of
receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure; sociability,
you know, and all that!”

‘I thought you were never sociable,” said John, in his
plain way.

“ Tchah! It’s of no use to be anything but free with you,
I see,” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Why, then, the truth is you have
a—what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable

appearance together: you and your wife. We know better,
you know, but 2

CHIRP THE FIRST 185

“No, we don’t know better,” interposed John. ‘“ What
are you talking about? ”

“Well! We don’t know better, then,” said Tackleton.
“We'll agree that we don’t. As you like; what does it
matter? Iwas going to say, as you have that sort of appear-
ance, your company will produce a favourable effect on Mrs.
Tackleton that will be. And though I don’t think your

_ good lady’s very friendly to me, in this matter, still she can’t
help herself from falling into my views, for there’s a compact-
ness and cosiness of appearance about her that always tells,
even in an indifferent case. You'll say you’ll come? ”

“We have arranged to keep our wedding-day (as far as

that goes) at home,” said John. ‘‘ We have made the

' promise to ourselves these six months. We think, you see,

that home i

“ Bah! what’s home?” cried Tackleton. ‘‘ Four walls

_and a ceiling! (why don’t you kill that Cricket? J would!

_Ialways do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and

a ceiling at my house. Come to me! ”

“You kill your Crickets, eh? ” said John.

| “Scrunch ’em, sir,’ returned the other, setting his heel

heavily on the floor. ‘“‘ You’ll say you’ll come? It’s as

much your interest as mine, you know, that the women

should persuade each other that they’re quiet and con-
tented, and couldn’t be better off, I know their way.
Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined
to clinch, always. There’s that spirit of emulation among
’em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, ‘ I’m the happiest
woman in the world, and mine’s the best husband in the
world, and I dote on him,’ my wife will say the same to yours,
or more, and half believe it.”

“Do you mean to say she don’t, then?” asked the

Carrier. ‘
“Don’t!” cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh.

* Don’t what? ”’

The carrier had had some faint idea of adding, “ dote
upon you.” But happening to meet the half-closed eye,
as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the
cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it
such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted
on, that he substituted, ‘ that she don’t believe it? ”’

“Ah, you dog! you’re joking,” said Tackleton. ;

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift

186 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he
was obliged to be a little more explanatory.

“TI have the humour,” said Tackleton, holding up the
fingers of his left hand, and tapping the fore-finger, to imply,
“there I am, Tackleton to wit: ” “‘ I have the humour, Sir,
to marry a young wife and a pretty wife: ”’ here he rapped
his little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly, but
sharply; with a sense of power. “ I’m able to gratify that
humour, and I do. It’s my whim. But—now look
there.”

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully,
before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and
watching the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and
then at him, and then at her, and then at him again.

“She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,” said
Tackleton; ‘‘ and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is
quite enough for me. But do you think there’s anything
more in it? ”’

“ T think,” observed the Carrier, ‘‘ that I should chuck
any man out of the window who said there wasn’t.”

“Exactly so,’ returned the other, with an unusual
alacrity of assent. ‘‘ To be sure! Doubtless you would.
Of course. I’m certain of it. Good-night. Pleasant
dreams!

The good Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable
and uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help
showing it, in his manner.

“ Good-night, my dear friend!” said Tackleton, com-
passionately. “‘ I’m off. We're exactly alike, in reality,
I see. You won't give us to-morrow evening? Well!
Next day you go out visiting, I know. I'll meet you there,
and bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her good. You're
agreeable? Thankee. What's that?”

It was a loud cry from the Carrier’s wife; a loud, sharp,
sudden cry, that made the room ring like a glass vessel.
She had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed
by terror and surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards
the fire, to warm himself, and stood within a short stride
of her chair. But quite still.

“Dot!” cried the Carrier. “ Mary! Darling! what's
the matter? ”

They were all about her ina moment. Caleb, who had
been dozing on the cake box in the first imperfect recovery

CHIRP THE FIRST 187

of his suspended presence of mind seized Miss Slowboy by
the hair of her head; but immediately apologised.

“Mary!” exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his
arms. “ Are you ill! what is it? Tell me, dear? ”

She only answered by beating her hands together, and
falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his
grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron,
and wept bitterly. And then, she laughed again; and
then, she cried again; and then, she said how cold it was, and
suffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as
before. The old man standing as before; quite still.

“Tm better, John,” she said. ‘ I’m quite well now—
| See

John! But John was on the other side of her. Why
turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if
addressing him! Was her brain wandering?

“Only a fancy, John dear—a kind of shock—a some-
thing coming suddenly before my eyes—I don’t know what
it was. It’s quite gone; quite gone.”

“Tm glad it’s gone,’’ muttered Tackleton, turning the
expressive eye all round the room. “I wonder where it’s
gone, and what it was. Humph! Caleb, come here!
Who’s that with the grey hair? ”

“T don’t know, Sir,” returned Caleb in a whisper.
‘* Never seek him before, in all my life. A beautiful figure
for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. With a screw-jaw
opening down into his waistcoat, he’d be lovely.”

“ Not ugly enough,” said Tackleton.

“Or for a firebox, either,’ observed Caleb, in deep
contemplation, ‘‘ what a model! Unscrew his head to put
the matches in! turn him heels up’ards for the light;
and what a firebox for a gentleman’s mantel-shelf, just as he
stands! ”’

““Not half ugly enough,” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Nothing
n him at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now, I
1ope? ”’

“Oh, quite gone! Quite gone!” said the little woman,
vaving him hurriedly away. ‘‘ Good-night!”

“ Good-night,”’ said Tackleton. ‘‘ Good-night, John
eerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb.
vet it fall, and I’ll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather
yorse than ever, eh? Good-night! ”

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out

188 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

at the door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his
head.

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little
wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her,
that he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger’s
presence, until now, when he again stood there, their only
guest.

“He don’t belong to them, you see,”’ said John. “T
must give him a hint to go.”

“I beg your pardon, friend,” said the old gentleman,
advancing to him; “‘ the more so, as I fear your wife has not
been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity,” he
touched his ears and shook his head, “‘ renders almost
indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some
mistake. The bad night which made the shelter of your
comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable,
is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer
me to rent a bed here? ”’

** Yes, yes,” cried Dot. “ Yes! Certainly! ”

“” Oh!” said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this
consent. ‘“‘ Well! I don’t object, but still I’m not quite
sure that “a

“Hush!” she interrupted. ‘‘ Dear John! ”

““ Why, he’s stone deaf,’”’ urged John.

“ [know he is, but—Yes, Sir, certainly. Yes! certainly!
Vil make him up a bed, directly, John.”

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and
the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier
stood looking after her, quite confounded.

“Did its mothers make it up a Beds then! ” cried Miss
Slowboy to the Baby; “ and did its hair grow brown and
curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious
Pets, a sitting by the fires! ”’

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind te
trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt ané
confusion, the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, founé
himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many
times. So many times that he got them by heart, and was
still conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly
after administering as much friction to the little bald hea¢
with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the
vractice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby’s cap on

“And frighten it a Precious Pets, a sitting by the fire

CHIRP THE FIRST 189

What frightened Dot, I wonder! ” mused the Carrier, pacing
to and fro.

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy
merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite
uneasiness; for Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had
that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow per-
ception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him.
He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything
that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his
wife; but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind
together, and he could not keep them asunder.

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining
all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then Dot: quite
well again, she said: quite well again: arranged the great
chair in the chimney corner for her husband; filled his pipe
and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him
on the hearth.

She always would sit on that little stool; I think she must
have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling
little stool.

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I
should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her
put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow
down the pipe to clear the tube; and when she had done
so, affect to think that there was really something in the
tube; and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a
telescope, with a most provoking twist in her capital little
face, as she looked down it; was quite a brilliant thing.
As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject;
and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the
Carrier had it in his mouth—going so very near his nose, and
yet not scorching it—was Art: high Art, Sir.

And the Cricket and the Kettle, tuning up again, ac-
knowledged it! The bright fire, blazing up again, acknow-
ledged it! The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded
work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his smoothing fore-
head and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all.

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old
pipe; and as the Dutch clock ticked; and as the red fire
gleamed; and as the Cricket chirped; that Genius of his
Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was) came ouf, in
fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of
Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the

190 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before
him, gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking
from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image;
newly-married Dots alighting at the door, and taking
wondering possession of the household keys; motherly
little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies
to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming,
watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls;
fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grand-
children; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered
as they crept along. Old Carriers, too, appeared, with
blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with
younger drivers (‘‘ Peerybingle Brothers ” on the tilt); and
sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves
of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard.
And as the Cricket showed him all these things he saw
them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the
fire—the Carrier’s heart grew light and happy, and he
thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and cared
no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.

But what was that young figure of a man, which the
same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which re-
mained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still,
so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever
repeating ‘“‘ Married! and not to mei”

Oh, Dot! Oh, failing Dot! There is no place for it in
all your husband’s visions; why has its shadow fallen on his
hearth!

CHIRP THE SECOND

CaLeB PLumMMeR and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by
themselves, as the Story-Books say—and my blessing, with
yours to back it, I hope, on the Story-Books, for saying
anything in this workaday world!—Caleb Plummer and his
Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little
cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no
better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of
Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton
were the great feature of the street; but you might have
knocked down Caleb Plummer’s dwelling with a hammer or
two, and carried off the pieces in a cart.

CHIRP THE SECOND 191

If anyone had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer
the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it would have
been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast im-
provement. It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton
like a barnacle to a ship’s keel, or a snail to a door, or a
little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. But it was
the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and
Tackleton had sprung; and under its crazy roof, the Gruff
before last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation
of old boys and girls, who had played with them, and found
them out, and broken them, and gone to sleep.

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter
lived here; but I should have said that Caleb lived here,
and his poor Blind Daughtersomewhere else; in an enchanted
home of Caleb’s furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness
were not and trouble never entered. Caleb was no Sorcerer,
but in the only magic art that still remains to us: the magic
of devoted, deathless love: Nature had been the mistress
of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came.

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured;
walls blotched, and bare of plaster here and there; high
crevices unstopped, and widening every day; beams
mouldering and tending downward. The Blind Girl never
knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off;
the very size and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling,
withering away. The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes
of delf and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and
faint-heartedness were in the house; that Caleb’s scanty
hairs were turning greyer and more grey before her sightless
face. ‘The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold,
exacting, and uninterested: never knew that Tackleton
was Tackleton, in short; but lived in the belief of an
eccentric humorist who loved to have his jest with them;
and while he was the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained
to hear one word of thankfulness.

And all was Caleb’s doing; all the doing of her simple
father! But he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and
listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind
Child was very young, that Spirit had inspired him with the
thought that even her great deprivation might be almost
changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these
little means. For all the Cricket Tribe are potent Spirits,
even though the people who hold converse with them do

192 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

not know it (which is frequently the case); and there are
not in the Unseen World, voices more gentle and more true!
that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain
to give none but tenderest counsel; as the Voices in which
the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth, address them-
selves to human kind.

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their
usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary
living room as well; and a strange place it was. There
were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all
stations in life. Surburban tenements for Dolls of moderate
means; kitchens and single apartments for Dolls of the
lower classes; capital town residences for Dolls of high
estate. Some of these establishments were already fur-
nished according to estimate, with a view to the convenience
of Dolls, of limited income; others could be fitted on the
most expensive scale, at a moment’s notice, from whole
shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery.
The nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose
accommodation these tenements were designed, lay here
and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling;
but in denoting their degrees in society, and confining them
to their respective stations (which experience shows to be
lamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these Dolls
had far improved on Nature, who is often froward and
perverse; for they, not resting om such arbitrary marks as
satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded striking,
personal differences which allowed of no mistake. Thus
the Doll-lady of Distinction had wax limbs of perfect
symmetry; but only she and her compeers; the next grade
in the social scale being made of leather; and the next of
course linen stuff. As to the common people, they have
just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and
legs, and there they were—established in their sphere at
once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it.

There were various other samples of his handicraft,
besides Dolls, in Caleb Plummer’s room. There were
Noah’s Arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an un-
commonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be
crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken
into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence,
most of these Noah’s Arks had knockers on the doors;
inconsistent appendages perhaps, as suggestive of morning

CHIRP THE SECOND 193

callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside
of the building. There were scores of melancholy little
carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most
doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other
instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords,
spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches,
incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and
coming down head-first upon the other side; and there
were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say
venerable appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs,
inserted for the purpose, in their own street doors. There
were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every
breed; from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small
tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest
mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens
upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to
commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle;
so it would have been no easy task to mention any human
folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate
or remote, in Caleb Plummer’s room. And not in an ex-
aggerated form; for very little handles will move men and
women to as strange performances as any Toy was ever
made to undertake.

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter
sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll’s dressmaker;
and Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a
desirable family mansion.

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb’s face, and his
absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well
on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an
odd contrast to his occupation, and the trivialities about
him. But trivial things, invented and pursued for bread,
become very serious matters of fact; and, apart from this
consideration, I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that
if Caleb had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a Member of
Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he
would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical; while
I have a very great doubt whether they would have been
as harmless.

“So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your
beautiful new great-coat,” said Caleb’s daughter.

“In my beautiful new great-coat,”’ answered, Caleb, glanc-
ing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth

I12—G

194 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

garment previously described was carefully hung up to
dry.
Me How glad I am you bought it, father! ”

“And of such a tailor, too,” said Caleb. ‘‘ Quite a
fashionable tailor. It’s too good for me.”

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with de-
light. “Too good, father! What can be too good for you?”

“I’m half ashamed to wear it, though,’ said Caleb,
watching the effect of what he said upon her brightening
face; “upon my word. When I hear the boys and people
say behind me, ‘ Hal-loa! Here’s a swell!’ I don’t know
which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go
away last night; and, when I said I was a very common
man, said ‘No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don’t
say that!’ I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I
hadn’t a right to wear it.”

Happy Blind Girl! Howmerry she was in her exultation!

““T see you, father,” she said, clasping her hands, “ as
plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with
me. A blue coat pe

‘Bright blue,” said Caleb.

“Yes, yes! Bright blue!” exclaimed the girl, turning
up her radiant face; ‘‘ the colour I can just remember in the
blessed sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright
blue coat ¥

**Made loose to the figure,” suggested Caleb.

“Yes! loose to the figure! ”’ cried the Blind Girl, laugh-
ing heartily; “‘ and in it you, dear father, with your merry
eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair:
looking so young and handsome! ”’

“Halloal Halloa!”’ said Caleb. ‘I shall be vain,
presently.”

“J think you are, already,” cried the Blind Girl, pointing
at him in her glee. ‘‘ I know you, father! Ha, ha, hal
I’ve found you out, you see! ”

How different the yicture in her mind, from Caleb, as he
sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She
was right in that. For years and years, he never once had
crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a
footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when
his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was
to render hers so cheerful and courageous!

Heaven knows! but I think Caleb’s vague bewilderment

CHIRP THE SECOND 195

of manner may have half originated in his having confused
himself about himself and everything around him, for the
love of his Blind Daughter. How could the little man be
otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many
years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects
that had any bearing on it!

“ There we are,” said Caleb, falling back a pace or two
to form the better judgment of his work; “ as near the real
thing as sixpenn’orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a
pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! If
there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the
rooms to goin at! But that’s the worst of my calling. I’m
always deluding myself, and swindling myself.”

“You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired,
father? ”

“ Tired,” echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation,
“‘ what should tire me, Bertha? J was never tired. What
does it mean? ”’

To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself
in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and
yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented
as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards;
and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian
song, something about a Sparkling Bowl; and he sang it
with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made
his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful
than ever.

“What! you’re singing, are you?” said Tackleton,
putting his head in at the door. “Go it! J can’t sing.”

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn’t
what is generally termed a singing face by any means.

“‘T can’t afford to sing,’ said Tackleton. “ I’m glad
you can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time
for both, I should think? ”

“‘ Tf you could only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at
me!” whispered Caleb, ‘‘Such a man to joke! you’d
think, if you didn’t know him, he was in earnest—wouldn’t
you now?”

The Blind Girl smiled, and nodded.

“The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made
to sing, they say,” grumbled Tackleton. “ What about the
owl that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to sing, and will sing;
is there anything that he should be made to do?”

196 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

“The extent to which he’s winking at this moment!”
whispered Caleb to his daughter. ‘ Oh, my gracious! 4

‘“‘ Always merry and light-hearted with us!” cried the
smiling Bertha.

“Oh! you’re there, are you?” answered Tackleton.
‘** Poor Idiot! ”’

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded
the belief, I can’t say whether consciously or not, upon her
being fond of him.

““ Well! and being there,—how are you?” said Tackle-
ton, in his grudging way.

“Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can
wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole
world if you could!”

“Poor Idiot!’ muttered Tackleton. ‘“‘ No gleam of
reason. Nota gleam!”

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it fora
moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against
it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeak-
able affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that
Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder grow] than
usual:

“ What’s the matter now?”

** T stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep
last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when the
day broke, and the glorious red sun—the red sun, father? ”’

“Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,” said
poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer.

“When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to
strike myself against in walking, came into the room, I
turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for
making things so precious, and blessed you for sending them
to cheer me! ”’

“Bedlam broke loose!” said Tackleton under his
breath. ‘‘ We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and
mufflers soon. We're getting on! ”’

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other,
stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if
he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackle-
ton had done anything to deserve her thanks, or not.
If he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment,
required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy merchant, or
fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe it would have

CHIRP THE SECOND 197

been an even chance which course he would have taken.
Yet Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the
little rose tree home for her, so carefully; and that with
his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which
should help to keep her from suspecting how much, how
very much, he every day denied himself that she might be
the happier.

“ Bertha! ” said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a
little cordiality. ‘‘ Come here.”

“Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn’t guide
me!” she rejoined.

“Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha? ”

“ Tf you will! ” she answered, eagerly.

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with
light, the listening head!

“This is the day on which little what’s-her-name; the
spoilt child; Peerybingle’s wife; pays her regular visit to
you—makes her fantastic Pic-Nic here; an’t it?” said
Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole
concern.

“ Yes,” replied Bertha. ‘‘ This is the day.”

“T thought so!” said Tackleton. ‘I should like to
join the party.”

“Do you hear that, father? ” cried the Blind Girl in an
ecstasy.

“Yes, yes, I hear it,’”’ murmured Caleb, with the fixed
look of a sleep-walker; ‘‘ but I don’t believe it. It’s one
of my lies, I’ve no doubt.” |

“You see I—I want to bring the Peerybingles a little
more into company with May Fielding,” said Tackleton.
“‘T am going to get married to May.”

“Married? ” cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.

“ She’s such a con-founded idiot,’’ muttered Tackleton,
“that I was afraid she’d never comprehend me. Ah,
Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-
coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones,
cleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery. A wedding,
you know; a wedding. Don’t you know what a wedding is? ”’

“I know,” replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. “I
understand! ”

“Do you?” muttered Tackleton. “It’s more than I
expected. Well! on that account I want to join the party,
and to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a little

198 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of
mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll
expect me?” 2

“ Yes,” she answered.

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so
stood, with her hands crossed, musing.

“J don’t think you will,” muttered Tackleton, looking
at her; ‘‘ for you seem to have forgotten all about it already.
Caleb! ”

“IT may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,”’ thought
Caleb. “‘ Sir?”

“Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to
her.”

‘* She never forgets,” returned Caleb. “ It’s one of the
few things she an’t clever in.”

“‘ Every man thinks his own geese, swans,” observed the
Toy merchant, with ashrug. ‘“ Poor devil!”

Having delivered himself of which remark, with in-
finite contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation.
The gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was
very sad. Three or four times, she shook her head, as if
bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrow-
ful reflections found no vent in words.

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time,
in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary
process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their
bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and sitting
down beside him said:

“Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes:
my patient, willing eyes.” ‘

“Here they are,” said Caleb. ‘‘ Always ready. They
are more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-
twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear? ”

“‘Look round the room, father.”

“All right,” said Caleb. ‘‘ No sooner said than done,
Bertha.”

“ Tell me about it.”

“It’s much the same as usual,” said Caleb.“ Homely
but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright
flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where
there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and
neatness of the building; make it very pretty.”

CHIRP THE SECOND 199

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha’s hands could
busy themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and
neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy
so transformed.

“You have your working-dress on, and are not so gallant
as when you wear the handsome coat?” said Bertha,
touching him.

“Not quite so gallant,” answered Caleb. “ Pretty
brisk, though.”

“Father,” said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side,
and stealing one arm round his neck, “‘ tell me something
about May. She is very fair?”

“‘ She is indeed,” said Caleb. And she was indeed. It
was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his
invention.

“Her hair is dark,’ said Bertha, pensively, ‘‘ darker
than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I
have often loved to hear it. Her shape——’”

“There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,” said
Caleb. ‘* And her eyes! a

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck;
and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning
pressure which he understood too well.

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and
then fell back upon the song about the Sparkling Bowl; his
infallible resource in all such difficulties.

“ Our friend, father; our benefactor. I am never tired,
you know, of hearing about him.—Now was I, ever?’”’ she
said, hastily.

“ Of course not,’’ answered Caleb. ‘‘ And with reason.”

“Ah! With how much reason?” cried the Blind Girl.
With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so
pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his
eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit.

“Then, tell me again about him, dear father,” said
Bertha. ‘“‘ Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind,
and tender. Honest and true, Iam sure it is. The manly
heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of rough-
ness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance.”

“And makes it noble,” added Caleb in his quiet

desperation.
“© And makes it noble,” cried the Blind Girl. ‘“ He is

older than May, father.”

200 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

“ Ye-es,” said Caleb, reluctantly. ‘ He’s a little older
than May. But that don’t signify.”

“ Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in in-
firmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his
constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weari-
ness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him;
sit beside his bed, and talk to him, awake; and pray for him
asleep; what privileges these would be! What opportunities
for proving all her truth and her devotion to him! Would
she do all this, dear father? ”’

““ No doubt of it,’”’ said Caleb.

“T love her, father; I can love her from my soul!”
exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor
blind face on Caleb’s shoulder, and so wept and wept, that
he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness
upon her.

In the meantime, there had been a pretty sharp com-
motion at John Peerybingle’s; for little Mrs. Peerybingle
naturally couldn’t think of going anywhere without the
Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh, took time. Not
that there was much of the Baby: speaking of it as a thing
of weight and measure: but there was a vast deal to do
about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages.
For instance: when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook,
to a certain point of dressing, and you might have ration-
ally supposed that another touch or two would finish him
off, and turn him out a tip-top Baby, challenging the world,
he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and
hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between
two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state
of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and
roaring violently, to partake of—well! I would rather say,
if you'll permit me to speak generally—of a slight repast.
After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle
took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in
a small Way as ever you saw anybody in your life; and
during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself
into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that
it had no connection with herself or anything else in the
universe, but was a shrunken, dog’s-eared, independent
fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to
anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again,
was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and¢

CHIRP THE SECOND 201

Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body,
and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course
of time they all three got down to the door, where the old
horse had already taken more than the full value of his day’s
toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with
his impatient autographs—and whence Boxer might be
dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back,
and tempting him to come on without orders.

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs.
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, I
flatter myself, if you think that was necessary. Before you
could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was
in her place, fresh and rosy, saying “John! How can
you! Think of Tilly!”

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs,
on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there
was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly
liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest
ascent or descent, without recording the circumstance upon
them with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days
upon his wooden calendar. But as this might be con-
sidered ungenteel, I'll think of it.

“ John? You’ve got the basket with the Veal and Ham-
Pie and things; and the bottles of beer?”’ said Dot. “‘ If
you haven’t, you must turn round again, this very minute.”

“‘ You’re a nice little article,” returned the Carrier, ‘‘ to
be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full
quarter of an hour behind my time.”

“‘T am sorry for it, John,” said Dot in a great bustle,
“but I really could not think of going to Bertha’s—I
wouldn’t do it, John, on any account—without the Veal
and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer. Way!”

This monosyllable was addressed to the Horse, who
didn’t mind it at all.

“Oh do Way, John! ” said Mrs. Peerybingle. ‘‘ Please!”

“« Tt’ll be time enough to do that,” returned John, “ when
I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s here, safe
enough.”

“‘ What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not
to have said so, at once, and saved me such a turn! I
declare I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s without the Veal and Ham-
Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any money.

“Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married,

202 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there. If anything
was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were
never to be lucky again.”

“Tt was a kind thought in the first instance,” said the
Carrier; ‘‘ and I honour you for it, little woman.”

“‘ My dear John!” replied Dot, turning veryred. ‘Don’t
talk about honouring me. Good Gracious!”

“‘ By-the-bye—” observed the Carrier. ‘‘ That old
gentleman,”

Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed.

“ He’s an odd fish,” said the Carrier, looking straight
along the road before them. “I can’t make him out. I
don’t believe there’s any harm in him.”

“None at all. I’m—I’m sure there’s none at all.”

** Yes?” said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her
face by the great earnestness of her manner. ‘“ I am glad
you feel so certain of it, because it’s a confirmation to me.
It’s curious that he should have taken it into his head to ask
leave to go on lodging with us; an’tit? ‘Things come about
so strangely.”

“So very strangely,” she rejoined in a low voice:
scarcely audible.

‘“ However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,” said
John, ‘“‘ and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word
is to be relied upon, like a gentleman’s. I had quite a long
talk with him this morning: he can hear me better already,
he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He told mea
great deal about himself, and I told him a good deal about
myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him
information about my having two beats, you know, in my
business; one day to the right from our house and back
again; another day to the left from our house and back
again (for he’s a stranger and don’t know the names of
places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. ‘ Why,
then I shall be returning home to-night your way,’ he says,
“when I thought you’d be coming in an exactly opposite
direction. That’s capital. I may trouble you for another
lift, perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep
again.’ He was sound asleep, sure-ly!—Dot! what are you
thinking of? ”

“Thinking of, John? I—I was listening to you.”

“Oh! That’s all right!” said the honest Carrier. ‘“ I
was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone

CHIRP THE SECOND 203

rambling on so long, as to set you thinking about something
else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.”

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little
time in silence. But it was not easy to remain silent very
long in John Peerybingle’s cart, for everybody on the road
had something to say; and though it might only be “‘ How
are you! ” and indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to
give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required,
not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of
the lungs withal as a long-winded Parliamentary speech.
Sometimes passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a
little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a
chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both sides.

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured re-
cognitions of and by the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians
could have done! Everybody knew him, all along the road,
especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him ap-
proaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked
up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most
of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back
settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer
acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down
all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out
of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-
Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all
the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular
customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might
have been heard to cry, “‘ Halloa! MHere’s Boxer!” And
out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least
two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and
his pretty wife, Good Day.

The packages and parcels for the errand-cart were
numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in
and give them out; which were not by any means the worst
parts of the journey. Some people were so full of expecta-
tion about their parcels, and other people were so full of
wonder about their parcels, and other people were so full of
inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John had
such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as
a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which re-
quired to be considered and discussed, and in reference to
the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to
be holden by the Carrier and the senders: at which Boxer

204 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and
long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages
and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents,
Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her
chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on: a charm-
ing little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt: there
was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings
and envyings among the younger men, | promise you.
And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for he
was proud to have his little wife admired; knowing that she
didn’t mind it—that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps.

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January
weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such
trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she
deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest
point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly
hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for it’s not in Baby
nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its
capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young
Peerbyingle was, all the way.

You couldn’t see very far in the fog, of course; but you
could see a great deal, oh, a great deal! It’s astonishing
how much you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will
only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit
watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and for the
patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges
and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention
of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came
Starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The
hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of
blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discourage-
ment in this. It was agreeable to contemplate; for it
made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer
greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it
was in motion, and moving at a good pace; which was a
great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that
must be admitted. Nevermind. It would freeze the sooner
when the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating,
and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up some-
where, near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney-
pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.

In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble
burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the day

CHIRP THE SECOND 205

time, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a
dash of red in it, until, in consequence as she observed of the
smoke “ getting up her nose,” Miss Slowboy choked—she
could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation
—and woke the Baby, who wouldn’t go to sleep again.
But Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so,
had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the
corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived;
and long before they reached the door, he and the Blind Girl
were on the pavement waiting to receive them.

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of
his own, in his communication with Bertha, which persuade
me fully that he knew her to be blind. He never sought to
attract her attention by looking at her, as he often did with
other people, but touched her invariably. What experience
he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs, I don’t
know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had
Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable
family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that
I am aware of. He may have found it out for himself,
perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore
he had hold of Bertha, too, by the skirt, and kept hold,
until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby and Miss Slowboy, and
the basket, were all got safely within doors.

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother
—a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face,
who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was
supposed to be a most transcendent figure; and who, in
consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring
under an impression that she might have been, if something
had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have
never been particularly likely to come to pass—but it’s all
the same—was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff
and Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable; with the
evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as
unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon
on the top of the Great Pyramid.

“May! My dear old friend!” cried Dot, running up
to meet her. ‘‘ What a happiness to see youl! ”

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as
she! and it really was, if you’ll believe me, quite a pleasant
sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste,
beyond all question. May was very pretty.

206 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty
face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison with
another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely
and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have
had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either with
Dot or May; for May’s face set off Dot’s, and Dot’s face set
off May’s, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peery-
bingle was very near saying when he came into the room,
they ought to have been born sisters: which was the only
improvement you could have suggested.

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful
to relate, a tart besides—but we don’t mind a little dissipa-
tion when our brides are in the case; we don’t get married
every day—and in addition to these dainties, there were the
Veal and Ham-Pie, and “ things,” as Mrs. Peerybingle called
them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and
such small beer. When the repast was set forth on the
board, flanked by Caleb’s contribution, which was a great
wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by
solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackle-
ton led his intended mother-in-law to the Post of Honour.
For the better gracing of this place at the high Festival,
the majestic old Soul had adorned herself with a cap,
calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe.
She also wore her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die!

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old school-
fellow side by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom
of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being,
from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that
she might have nothing else to knock the Baby’s head
against.

As Tilly stared about her at the Dolls and Toys they
stared at her and at the company. The venerable old
gentlemen at the street doors (who were all in full action)
showed especial interest in the party: pausing occasionally
before leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation:
and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times,
without halting for breath,—as in a frantic state of delight
with the whole proceedings.

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have
a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton’s discom-
fiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton
couldn’t get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended

CHIRP THE SECOND 207

Bride became in Dot’s society, the less he liked it, though
he had brought them together for that purpose. For he
was a regular Dog in the Manger, was Tackleton; and
when they laughed, and he couldn’t, he took it into his head,
immediately, that they must be laughing at him.

“Ah, May!” said Dot. ‘“ Dear, dear, what changes!
To talk of those merry schooldays makes one young again.”

“Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time; are you? ”’
said Tackleton.

“Look at my sober, plodding husband there,” returned
Dot. ‘‘ He adds Twenty years to my age at least. Don’t
you, John?”

“* Forty,” John replied.

“How many you'll add to May’s, I am sure I don’t
know,” said Dot, laughing. ‘‘ But she can’t be much less
than a hundred years of age on her next birthday.”

“Ha, hal” laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum,
that laugh, though. And he looked as if he could have
twisted Dot’s neck: comfortably.

“Dear, dear!’”’ said Dot. ‘‘ Only to remember how we
used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose.
I don’t know how young, and how handsome, and how gay,
and how lively, mine was not to be! and as to May’s!—Ah
dear! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, when I think
what silly girls we were.”

May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flashed
into her face, and tears stood in her eyes.

“‘ Even the very persons themselves—real live young
men—we fixed on sometimes,” said Dot. ‘“ We little
thought how things would come about. I never fixed on
John, I’m sure; I never so much as thought of him. And
if I had told you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackle-
ton, why you’d have slapped me. Wouldn’t you, May?”

Though May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no,
or express no, by any means.

Tackleton laughed—quite shouted, he laughed so loud.
John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured
and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a
laugh to Tackleton’s.

“You couldn’t help yourselves, for all that. You
couldn’t resist us, you see,” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Here we are!
Here we are! Where are your gay young bridegrooms
now?”

e

208 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

“ Some of them are dead,” said Dot; “‘ and some of them
forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us at
this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures;
would not believe that what they saw and heard was real,
and we could forget them so. No! they would not believe
one word of it!”

“Why, Dot!” exclaimed the Carrier. “Little
woman! ”

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she
stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt.
Her husband’s check was very gentle, for he merely inter-
fered, as he supposed, to shield old Tackleton; but it
proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more. There
was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which
the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to
bear upon her, noted closely; and remembered to some
purpose too, as you will see.

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still,
with her eyes cast down; and made no sign of interest in
what had passed. The good lady her mother now inter-
posed: observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls,
and bygones bygones, and that so long as young people
were young and thoughtless, they would probably conduct
themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two
or three other positions of a no less sound and incontro-
vertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit,
that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her
daughter May, a dutiful and obedient child; for which she
took no credit to herself, though she had every reason to
believe it was entirely owing to herself. With regard to
Mr. Tackleton she said, That he was in a moral point of view
an undeniable individual; and that he was in an eligible
point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their
senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here.) With
regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after
some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackle-
ton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some
pretensions to gentility; and that if certain circumstances,
not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with
the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more particu-
larly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have
been in possession of Wealth. She then remarked that she
would not allude to the past, and would not mention that

CHIRP THE SECOND 209

her daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr.
Tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other
things which she did say, at great length. Finally, she
delivered it as the general result of her observations and
experience, that those marriages in which there was least
of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always
the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible
amount of bliss—not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-
going article—from the approaching nuptials. She con-
cluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the
day she had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over,
she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and
disposed of, in any genteel place of burial.

As these remarks were quite unanswerable: which is the
happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of
the purpose: they changed the current of the conversation,
and diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham-
Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order
that the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peery-
bingle proposed To-morrow: the Wedding-day; and called
upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on
his journey.

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and
gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or five
miles farther on; and when he returned in the evening, be
called for Dot, and took another rest on his way home.
This was the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic occasions,
and had been ever since their institution.

There were two persons present, besides the bride and
bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the
toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and discom-
posed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the moment;
the other Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest,
and left the table.

“Good-bye! ”’ said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on
his dreadnought coat. ‘‘I shall be back at the old time.
Good-bye, all!”

“ Good-bye, John,” returned Caleb.

_ He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the
same unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha
with an anxious wondering face, that never altered its
expression.

““ Good-bye, young eres ” said the jolly Carrier,

210 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now
intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and
strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of Bertha’s
furnishing; ‘‘ good-bye! Time will come, I suppose,
when you’ll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave
your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the
chimney-corner; eh? Where’s Dot?”

“Tm here, John! ” she said, starting.

“Come, come!” returned the Carrier, clapping his
sounding hands. ‘‘ Where’s the Pipe?”

“I quite forgot the Pipe, John.”

Forgot the Pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of!
She! Forgot the Pipe!

“ Tll —I’ll fill it directly. It’s soon done.”

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual
place; the Carrier’s dreadnought pocket; with the little
pouch, her own work; from which she was used to fill it;
but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her
hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure),
and bungled terribly. The filling of the Pipe and lighting
it; those little offices in which I have commended her
discretion, if you recollect; were vilely done, from first to
last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking
on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever
it met hers—or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have
ever met another eye; rather being a kind of trap to snatch
tt up—augmented her confusion in a most remarkable
degree.

“Why, what a clumsy Dot you are this afternoon!”
said John. ‘I could have done it better myself, I verily
delievel”’ :

With these good-natured words he strode away; and
presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old
horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road.
What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his
Siind Daughter, with the same expression on_ his
face.

“ Bertha!” said Caleb, softly. ‘‘ What has happened?
How changed you are, my Darling, in a few hours—since this
morning. You silent and dull all day! What is it? Tell
mel!”

“ Oh, father, father! ” cried the Blind Girl, bursting into
tears. ‘‘ Oh my hard, hard Fate! ”

CHIRP THE SECOND 211

. Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered
er.

“ But think how cheerful and how happy you have been,
Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many people.”

“That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always
so mindful of me! Always so kind to me! ”

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.

“To be—to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,” he faltered,
“is a great affliction; but "

“‘T have never felt it!’ cried the Blind Girl. ‘ I have
never felt it, in its fulness. Never! I have sometimes
wished that I could see you, or could see him! only once,
dear father; only for one little minute; that I might know
what it is I treasure up,” she laid her hands upon her
breast, ‘‘ and hold here! That I might be sure I have it
right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) I have wept,
in my prayers at night, to think that when your images
ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the
true resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had
these feelings long. They have passed away, and left me
tranquil and contented.”

“ And they will again,” said Caleb.

“ But, father! Oh, my good, gentle father, bear with
me, if I am wicked! ”’ said the Blind Girl. ‘“ This is not the
sorrow that so weighs me down! ”

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes over-
flow; she was so earnest and pathetic. But he did not
understand her yet.

“ Bring her to me,” said Bertha. ‘I cannot hold it
closed and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father! ”

She knew he hesitated, and said, ‘‘ May. Bring May!”

May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly
towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl
turned immediately, and held her by both hands.

‘Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!” said
Bertha. “ Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me
if the Truth is written on it.”

‘Dear Bertha, Yes! ”

The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face,
down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in
these words:

“There is not, in my Soul, a wish or thought that is not
for your good, bright May! There is not, in my Soul, a

212 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

grateful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance
which is stored there, of the many, many times when, in the
full pride of Sight and Beauty, you have had consideration
for Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when
Bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be!
Every blessing on your head! Light upon your happy
course! Not the less, my dear May;” and she drew
towards her, in a closer grasp; ‘“‘ not the less, my Bird,
because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be His wife
has wrung my heart almost to breaking! Father, May,
Mary! Oh, forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has
done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the
sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to
witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more
worthy of his Goodness! ”

While speaking, she had released May Fielding’s hands,
and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled suppli-
cation and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she
proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at
the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of
her dress.

** Great Power! ’”’ exclaimed her father, smitten at one
blow with the truth, “‘ have I deceived her from her cradle,
but to break her heart at last! ”’

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful,
busy little Dot—for such she was, whatever faults she had;
however you may learn to hate her, in good time—it was
well for all of them, I say, that she was there: or where this
would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering
her self-possession, interposed, before May could reply, or
Caleb say another word.

“Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me!
Give her your arm, May. So! How composed she is, you
see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us,’”’ said the
cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. ‘‘ Come
away, dear Bertha! Come! and here’s her good father will
come with her; won’t you, Caleb? To—be—sure! ”

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot, in such things,
and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have
withstood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb
and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and console
each other, as she knew they only could, she presently
came bouncing back,—the saying is, as fresh as any daisy;

CHIRP THE SECOND 213

I say fresher—to mount guard over that bridling little
piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the
dear old creature from making discoveries.

“‘ So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,” said she, draw-
ing a chair to the fire; ‘and while I have it in my lap,
here’s Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the manage-
ment of Babies, and put me right in twenty points where I’m
as wrong as can be. Won’t you, Mrs. Fielding? ”

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the
popular expression, was so “slow as to perform a fatal
surgical operation upon himself,” in emulation of a juggling
trick achieved by his arch-enemy at breakfast-time; not
even he fell half so readily into the Snare prepared for him,
as the old lady into this artful Pitfall. The fact of Tackle-
ton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three
people having been talking together at a distance, for two
minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite
enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment
of that mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-
and-twenty hours. But this becoming deference to her
experience, on the part of the young mother, was so irresist-
ible, that after a short affectation of humility, she began to
enlighten her with the best grace in the world; and sitting
bolt upright before the wicked Dot, she did, in half-an-hour,
deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts, than
would (if acted on), have utterly destroyed and done up
that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Intant
Samson.

To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework—
she carried the contents of a whole work-box in her pocket;
how ever she contrived it, J don’t know—then did a little
nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a
little whispering chat with May, while the old lady dozed;
and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite her manner
always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it grew
dark, and as it was a solemn part of this Institution of the
Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha’s household tasks,
she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-
board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle.
Then she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which
Caleb had contrived for Bertha, and played them very well;
for Nature had made her delicate little ear as choice a one
for music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had

214 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

any to wear. By this time it was the established hour for
having tea; and Tackleton came back again to share the
meal and spend the evening.

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and
Caleb had sat down to his afternoon’s work. Buthecouldn’t
settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his
daughter. It was touching to see him sitting idle on his
working-stool, regarding her so wistfully; and always saying
in his face, ‘‘ Have I deceived her from her cradle but to
break her heart! ”

When it was night, and teawas done, and Dot had nothing
more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word—
for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off—
when the time drew nigh for expecting the Carrier’s return
in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed
again; her colour came and went; and she was very restless.
Not as good wives are, when listening for their husbands.
No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from that.

Wheels heard. <A horse’s feet. The barking of a dog.
The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching
paw of Boxer at the door!

‘Whose step is that?” cried Bertha, starting up.

“Whose step?’ returned the Carrier, standing in the
portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the
keen night air. ‘‘ Why, mine.”

“The other step,” said Bertha. “The man’s tread
behind you?”

“She is not to be deceived,” observed the Carrier,
laughing. ‘‘ Come along, Sir. You'll be welcome, never
fear!”

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old
gentleman entered.

* He’s not so much a stranger, that you haven’t seen him
once, Caleb,” said the Carrier. ‘‘ You'll give him house-
room till we go?”

“Oh surely, John; and take it as an honour.”

“ Fle’s the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,’
said John. “I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries
“em, I can tell you. Sit down, Sir. All friends here, and
glad to see you! ”

When he had imparted this assurance in a voice that
amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he
added in his natural tone, ‘A chair in the chimney-corner,

CHIRP THE SECOND 215

and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him,
is all he cares for. He’s easily pleased.”

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb
to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, ina
low voice, to describe their visitor. ‘When he had done so
(truly now, with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the
first time since he had come in, and sighed; and seemed to
have no further interest concerning him.

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was;
and fonder of his little wife than ever.

“A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!” he said,
encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from
the rest; ‘and yet [like her somehow. See yonder, Dot!”

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think
she trembled.

“ He’s—ha, ha, ha!—he’s full of admiration for you! ”
said the Carrier. ‘ Talked of nothing else, the whole way
bere. Why, he’s a brave old boy. I like him for it!”

““T wish he had had a better subject, John,” she said,
with an uneasy glance about the room; at Tackleton
especially.

“A better subject!” cried the jovial John. ‘‘ There’s
no such thing. Come! off with the great-coat, off with the
thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-
hour by the fire! My humble service, Mistress. A game of
cribbage, you and I? That’s hearty. The cards and
board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there’s any left,
small wife! ”

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accept-
ing it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon
the game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes,
with a simile, or now and then called Dot to peep over his
shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point.
But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject
to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than
she was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as
left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus his whole
attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and
he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder
restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton.

“I am sorry to disturb you—but a word, directly.”

“I’m going to deal,’ returned the Carrier. “It’s a

crisis.”

216 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

“It is,” said Tackleton. ‘“‘ Come here, man!”

There was that in his pale face which made the other rise
immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.

“Hush! John Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton. “I
am sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it.
I have suspected it from the first.”

“What is it?’ asked the Carrier, with a frightened
aspect.

“Hush! Ill show you, if you'll come with me.”

The Carrier accompanied him, without another word.
They went across a yard, where the stars were shining;
and by a little side door, into Tackleton’s own counting-
house, where there was a ‘glass-window, commanding the
ware-room: which was closed for the night. There was no
light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps
in the long narrow ware-room: and consequently the window
was bright.

““A moment,” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Can you bear to look
through that window, do you think? ”

“Why not?” returned the Carrier.

“A moment more,” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Don’t commit
any violence. It’s of no use. It’s dangerous too. You're
a strong-made man; and you might do murder before you
know it.”

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step
as if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window
and he saw

Oh, Shadow on the Hearth! Oh, truthful Cricket!
Oh, perfidious Wife!

He saw her with the old man; old no longer, but erect
and gallant: bearing in his hand the false white hair that had
won his way into their desolate and miserable home. He
saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in
her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as
they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards
the door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop,
and saw her turn—to have the face, the face he loved so,
so presented to his view!—and saw her with her own hands,
adjust the Lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his
unsuspicious nature!

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would
have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately
again, he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he

CHIRP THE SECOND 217

was tender of her, even then), and so, as they passed
out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant.

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse
_and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for
going home.

“Now John, dear! Good night, May! Good night,
Bertha! ”

Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful
in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them
without a blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely;
and she did all this.

Tilly was hushing the Baby; and she crossed and re-
crossed Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily:

“ Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then,
wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers
deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last! ’”’

“Now Tilly, give me the Baby. Good night, Mr.
Tackleton. Where’s John, for Goodness’ sake? ”

“ He’s going to walk, beside the horse’s head,” said
Tackleton; who helped her to her seat.

“My dear John. Walk? To-night? ”

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in
the affirmative; and the false Stranger and the little nurse
being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the
unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back,
running round and round the cart, and barking as triumph-
antly and merrily as ever.

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and
her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside
his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still
saying in his wistful contemplation of her, “‘ Have I deceived
her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last! ”

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had
all stopped and run down long ago. In the faint light and
silence, the imperturbably calm dolls; the agitated rocking-
horses with distended eyes and nostrils; the old gentlemen
at the street doors, standing, half-doubled up, upon their
failing knees and ankles; the wry-faced nutecrackers; the
very Beasts upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a
- Boarding-School out walking; might have been imagined
to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot
being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination
of circumstances.

218 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

CHIRP THE THIRD

Tue Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier
sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, that
he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten
melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged
back into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little
door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too
much for his feelings.

If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest
of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier’s
heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it, as Dot
had done.

It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and
held together by innumerable threads of winning remem-
brance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities
of endearment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined
herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so
earnest in its Truth: so strong in right, so weak in wrong:
that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first,
and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol.

But slowly, slowly; as the Carrier sat brooding on his
hearth, now cold and dark; other and fiercer thoughts began
to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night.
The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps
would take him to his chamber door. One blow would beat it
in. ‘ You might do Murder before you know it,’”’ Tackleton
had said. How could it be Murder if he gave the Villain time
to grapple with him hand to hand! He was the younger man.

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his
mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some
avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a
haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass
by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling
in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear
wild noises in the stormy weather.

He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who
had won the heart that he had never touched. Some lover
of her early choice; of whom she had thought and dreamed;
for whom she had pined and pined; when he had fancied her
so happy by his side. Oh, agony to think of it!

a se.

CHIRP THE THIRD 219

She had been above stairs with the Baby, getting it to
bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close
beside him, without his knowledge—in the turning of the
rack of his great misery he lost all other sounds—and put her
little stool at his feet. He only knew it, when he felt her
hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face.

With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he
was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not with
wonder. With an eager and inquiring look; but not with
wonder. At first it was alarmed and serious; then it
changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of
his thoughts; then there was nothing but her clasped hands
on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair.

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield
at that moment, he had too much of its Diviner property
of Mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather’s weight
of it against her. But he could not bear to see her crouching
down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her,
with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and when she
rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to
have the vacant place beside him rather than her so long
cherished presence. This in itself was anguish keener than
all: reminding him how desolate he was become, and how
the great bond of his life was rent asunder.

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could
have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before
him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and the
stronger rose his wrath against hisenemy. He looked about
him for a weapon.

There was a Gun hanging on the wall. He took it down,
and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious
Stranger’s room. He knew the Gun was loaded. Some
shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a Wild
Beast, seized him; and dilated in his mind until it grew into
a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting
out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire.

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder
thoughts, but artfully transforming them. Changing them
into scourges to drive him on. ‘Turning water into blood,
Love into hate, Gentleness into blind ferocity. Her image,
sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and
mercy with resistless power, never left his mind; but staying
there, it urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his

220 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to the trigger; and
cried ‘‘ Kill him! In his bed!”

He reversed the Gun to beat the stock upon the door;
he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design
was in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for God’s
sake, by the window—

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole
chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth
began to chirp!

No sound he could have heard; no human voice, not even
hers, could so have moved and softened him. The artless
words in which she had told him of her love for this same
Cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her trembling,
earnest manner at the moment, was again before him;
her pleasant voice—oh, what a voice it was, for making
household music at the fireside of an honest man!—thrilled
through and through his better nature, and awoke it into
life and action.

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep,
awakened from a frightful dream; and put the Gun aside.
Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again
beside the fire, and found relief in tears.

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and
stood in Fairy shape before him.

“* T love it,’ ”’ said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he
well remembered, ‘‘ ‘ for the many times I have heard it,
and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.’ ”’

“‘She said so!” cried the Carrier. “ True!”

“ «This has been a happy Home, John; and I love the
Cricket for its sake!’ ”

“Tt has been, Heaven knows,” returned the Carrier.
“She made it happy, always,—until now.”

“So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful,
busy, and light-hearted; ”’ said the Voice.

“Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,”
returned the Carrier.

The Voice, correcting him, said “ do.’

The Carrier repeated ‘as I did.” But not firmly.
His faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak
in its own way, for itself and him.

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand
and said:

“ Upon your own heart 2

CHIRP THE THIRD 294

“The hearth she has blighted,” interposed the Carrier.

“The hearth she has—how often!—blessed and
brightened,” said the Cricket, ‘‘ the hearth which, but for
her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but
which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home; on
which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion,
selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil
mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that
the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a
better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before
the richest shrines in all the gaudy Temples of this World!
—Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; sur-
rounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her!
Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language of
your hearth and home! ”

“* And pleads for her? ” inquired the Carrier.

“ All things that speak the language of your hearth and
home, must plead for her!” returned the Cricket. ‘“ For
they speak the Truth.”

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands,
continued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood
beside him; suggesting his reflections by its power, and
presenting them before him, as ina Glass or Picture. It was
not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the
chimney; from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the
cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs;
from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and the
household implements; from everything and every place
with which she had ever been familiar, and with which
she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in
her unhappy husband’s mind; Fairies came trooping
forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to
busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour to her
image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it
appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew
flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with
their tiny hands. To show that they were very fond of it
and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked, or
accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it—none but
their playful and approving selves.

His thoughts were constant to her Image. It was always

there.
She sat plying her needle before the fire, and singing to

222 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

herself. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The
fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with
one prodigious concentrated stare; and seemed to say “ Is
this the light wife you are mourning for? ”

There were sounds of gaiety outside: musical instru-
ments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young
merry-makers came pouring in; among whom were May
Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of
them all; as young as any of them too. They came to
summon her to join their party. It was a dance. If ever
little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. But
she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery
on the fire, and her table ready spread: with an exulting
defiance that rendered her more charming than she was
before. And so she merrily dismissed them: nodding to
her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed out,
with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and
drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers—
and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn’t
help it. And yet indifference was not her character. Oh,
no! For presently, there came a certain Carrier to the
door; and, bless her, what a welcome she bestowed upon
him!

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once
and seemed to say “ Is this the wife who has forsaken you! ”’

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it
what you will. <A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first
stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and
blotting out all other objects. But the nimble fairies
worked like Bees to clear it off again; and Dot again was
there. Still bright and beautiful.

Rocking her little Baby in its cradle; singing to it softly;
and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counter-
part in the musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood,

The night—I mean the real night; not going by Fairy
clocks—was wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier’s
thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky.
Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also in his
mind; and he could think more soberly of what had
happened. .

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at interval
upon the glass—always distinct, and big, and thoroughly
defined—it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it

CHIRP THE THIRD 223

appeared, the Fairies uttered a general cry of consternation,
and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable
activity, to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot
again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beauti-
ful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner.

They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and
bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom Falsehood
is annihilation; and being so, what Dot was there for them,
but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who
had been the light and sun of the Carrier’s Home!

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed
her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old
matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly
herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her
husband’s arm, attempting—she! such a bud of a little
woman—to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities
of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to
whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the
same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carricr for being
awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart,
and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how
to dance!

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they
showed her with the Blind Girl; for though she carried cheer-
fulness and animation with her, wheresoever she went, she
bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s home, heaped up
and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and trust
in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of
setting Bertha’s thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for
filling up each moment of the visit in doing something
useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning
to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing
delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer;
her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave;
the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat
foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establish-
ment—a something necessary to it, which it couldn’t be
without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for.
And once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly;
and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her
dress and fondled her, “ Is this the wife who has betrayed
your confidence! ”

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thought-

224 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

ful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite
seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow,
her falling hair: as he had seen her last. And when they
found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him,
but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her:
and pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness
to her: and forgot him altogether.

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars
grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier
still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there,
with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the
faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the
Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night,
the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night
she had been amiable and blameless in the Glass, except
when that one shadow fell upon it.

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and
dressed himself. He couldn’t go about his customary
cheerful avocations; he wanted spirit for them; but it
mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and
he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He had
thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such
plans were at an end. It was their own wedding-day too.
Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year!

The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him an
early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and
fro before his own door many minutes, when he saw the
Toy Merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the
chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed
out sprucely for his marriage: and had decorated his horse’s
head with flowers and favours.

The horse looked much more like a Bridegroom than
Tackleton; whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably
expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of
this. His thoughts had other occupation.

“John Peerybingle!”’ said Tackleton, with an air of
condolence. ‘My good fellow, how do you find yourself
this morning? ”

“T have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,”
returned the Carrier, shaking his head: “ for I have been a
good deal disturbed in my mind. But it’s over now! Can
you spare me half-an-hour or so for some private talk? ”

“I came on purpose,” returned Tackleton, alighting.

CHIRP THE THIRD 225

“Never mind the horse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with
the reins over this post, if you’ll give him a mouthful of hay.”

The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it
before him, they turned into the house.

** You are not married before noon? ” he said, “ I think? ”’

“No,” answered Tackleton. ‘ Plenty of time. Plenty
of time.”

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rap-
ping at the Stranger’s door; which was only removed from
it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had
been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was
at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and seemed
frightened.

“Tf you please I can’t make nobody hear,” said Tilly,
looking round. ‘‘ I hope nobody an’t gone and been and
died if you please! ”

This philanthropic wish Miss Slowboy emphasised with
various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to no
result whatever.

“Shall I go? ”’ said Tackleton. “ It’s curious.”

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door,
signed to him to go if he would.

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he too
kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply.
But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it
opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in; and soon
came running out again.

“John Peerybingle,” said Tackleton, in his ear. “I
hope there has been nothing—nothing rash in the night.”

The Carrier turned upon him quickly.

““Because he’s gone!” said Tackleton; ‘‘ and the
window’s open. I don’t see any marks—to be sure it’s
almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there
might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?”

He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he
looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face,
and his whole person a sharp twist, as if he would have
screwed the truth out of him. ‘

“‘ Make yourself easy,” said the Carrier. ‘‘ He went into
that room last night, without harm in word or deed from
me; and no one has entered it since. He is away of his
own free will. I’d go out gladly at that door, and beg my
bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the

I2—H

226 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

past that he had never come. But he has come and gone.
And I have done with him! ”

“ Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easily,” said
Tackleton, taking a chair.

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too,
and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time
before proceeding.

“You showed me last night,” he said at length, “ my
wife; my wife that I love; secretly he

“And tenderly,” insinuated Tackleton.

“Conniving at that man’s disguise, and giving him
opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there’s no sight
1 wouldn’t have rather seen than that. I think there’s no
man in the world I wouldn’t have rather had to show it me.”

‘IT confess to having had my suspicions always,”’ said
Tackleton. ‘‘ And that has made me objectionable here,
I know.”

“But as you did show it me,” pursued the Carrier, not
minding him; “and as you saw her; my wife; my wife
that I love ’’—his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier
and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursu-
ance of a steadfast purpose—“ as you saw her at this dis-
advantage, it is right and just that you should also see with
my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind
is, upon the subject. For it’s settled,” said the Carrier, re-
garding him attentively. ‘“‘ And nothing can shake it now.”’

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about
its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but
he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain
and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and
noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honour
dwelling in the man, could have imparted.

“Tam a plain, rough man,” pursued the Carrier, “ with
very little to recommend me. Iam not a clever man, as you
very well know. Iam nota young man. I loved my little
Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her
father’s house; because I knew how precious she was;
because she had been my Life, for years and years. There’s
many men I can’t compare with, who never could have loved
my little Dot like me, I think! ”

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with
his foot, before resuming:

“ IT often thought that though I wasn’t good enough for

CHIRP THE THIRD 227

her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know
her value better than another; and in this way I reconciled
it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we
should be married. And in the end it came about, and we
were married.”’

“ Hah!” said Tackleton, with a significant shake of his
head.

“ T had studied myself; I had had experience of myself;
I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be,”
pursued the Carrier. “‘ But I had not—I feel it now—
sufficiently considered her.’

“To be sure,” said Tackleton. ‘“ Giddiness, frivolity,
fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left
out of sight! Hah!”

“You had best not interrupt me,” said the Carrier,
with some sternness, “till you understand me; and you’re
wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I’d have struck that man
down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her;
to-day I’d set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother! ”

The Toy Merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He
went on in a softer tone:

“Did I consider,” said the Carrier, “‘ that I took her;
at her age, and with her beauty; from the young com-
panions, and the many scenes of which she was the orna-
ment; in which she was the brightest little star that ever
shone; to shut her up from day to day in my dull house,
and keep my tedious company? Did I consider how little
suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome
a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit?
Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me,
that Iloved her, when everybody must who knewher? Never.
I took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful
disposition; and I married her. I wish I never had! Tor
her sake; not for mine!”

The Toy Merchant gazed at him without winking.
Even the half-shut eye was open now.

** Heaven bless her! ’”’ said the Carrier, ‘‘ for the cheerful
constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge
of this from me! and Heaven help me, that in my slow mind,
I have not found it out before! Poor child! Poor Dot!
I not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears,
when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who
bave seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times.

228 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

and never suspected it till last night! Poor girl! That I
could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever
believe she was! ”

“ She made a show of it,’ said Tackleton. ‘‘ She made
such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin
of my misgivings.’’

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding,
who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him.

“She has tried,” said the poor Carrier, with greater
emotion than he had exhibited yet; ‘ I only now begin to
know how hard she has tried; to be my dutiful and zealous
wife. How good she has been; how much she has done;
how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I
have known under this roof bear witness! It will be some
help and comfort to me when I am here alone.”

“Here alone?” said Tackleton. ‘‘ Oh! Then you do
mean to take some notice of this? ”

“1 mean,” returned the Carrier, “ to do her the greatest
kindness, and make her the best reparation in my power.
I can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage,
and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can
render her.”

““ Make her reparation! ” exclaimed Tackleton, twisting
and turning his great ears with his hands. ‘‘ There must be
something wrong here. You didn’t say that, of course.’’

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy
Merchant, and shook him like a reed.

“Listen to me!” he said. ‘“‘ And take care that you
hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly? ”

“Very plainly, indeed,’’ answered Tackleton.

“ As if I meant it? ”

“Very much as if you meant it.”

“ T sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,” exclaimed
the Carrier. ‘‘ On the spot where she has often sat beside
me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her
whole life, day by day; I had her dear self, in its every
passage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is
innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty! ”’

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal Household Fairies!

“ Passion and distrust have left me!” said the Carrier;
“and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy
moment, some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years
than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will; re-

CHIRP THE THIRD 229

turned. In an unhappy moment: taken by surprise, and
wanting time to think of what she did, she made herself a
party to his treachery, by concealing it. Last night she
saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It was wrong.
But otherwise than this, she is innocent if there is Truth
on earth! ”

“ Tf that is your opinion ”” Tackleton began.

“So, let her go!” pursued the Carrier. “Go, with my
blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and
my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her
go, and have the peace of mind I wish her; she’ll never
hate me. She’ll learn to like me better, when I’m not a drag
upon her, and she wears the chain I have riveted, more
lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with so little
thought for her enjoyment, from her home. To-day she
shall return to it; and I will trouble her no more. Her
father and mother will be here to-day—we had made a little
plan for keeping it together—and they shall take her home.
I can trust her there, or anywhere. She leaves me without
blame, and she will live so, Iam sure. If I should die—I
may perhaps while she is still young; I have lost some courage
in a few hours—she’ll find that I remembered her, and
loved her to the last! This is the end of what you showed
me. Now, it’s over!”

“Oh no, John, not over. Do not say it’s over yet!
Not quite yet. Ihave heard your noble words. I could not
steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected
me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it’s over, ’till
the clock has struck again! ”

She had entered shortly after Tackleton; and had re-
mained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her
eyes upon her husband. But she kept away from him,
setting as wide a space as possible between them; and
though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she
went no nearer to him even then. How different is this,
from her old self!

““No hand can make the clock which will strike again
for me the hours that are gone,” replied the Carrier, with a
faint smile. ‘‘ But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will
strike soon. It’s of little matter what we say. Id
try to please you in a harder case than that.”

“ Well! ”’ muttered Tackleton. ‘“‘ I must be off; for
when the clock strikes again, it’ll be necessarv for me to be

230 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

upon my way to church. Good morning, John Peerybingle.
I’m sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company.
Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!”

“‘ T have spoken plainly? ” said the Carrier, accompany-
ing him to the door.

“Oh, quite!”

“And you'll remember what I have said? ”

“Why, if you compel me to make the observation,”
said Tackleton; previously taking the precaution of getting
into his chaise; ‘‘ I must say that it was so very unexpected,
that I’m far from being likely to forget it.”

“* The better for us both,” returned the Carrier. ‘‘ Good-
bye. I give you joy!”

‘‘T wish I could give it to you,” said Tackleton. “ As
I can’t; thank ’ee. Between ourselves (as I told you
before, eh?) I don’t much think I shall have the less joy in
my married life, because May hasn't been too officious about
me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! Take care of
yourself.””

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller
in the distance than his horse’s flowers and favours near at
hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a
restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms;
unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking.

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but
often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good
he was, how excellent he was; and once or twice she laughed;
so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all
the time), that Tilly was quite horrified.

“ Ow if you please don’t!” said Tilly. “ It’s enough to
dead and bury the Baby, so it is, if you please.”

“Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father,
Tilly,” inquired her mistress; drying her eyes; ‘ when I
can’t live here, and have gone to my old home? ”

“ Ow if you please don’t,” cried Tilly, throwing back her
head, and bursting out into a howl; she looked at the
moment uncommonly like Boxer; ‘“ Ow if you please
don’t! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done
with everybody, making everybody else so wretched!
Ow-w-w-w! ”

The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture,
into such a deplorable howl: the more tremendous from its
long suppression: that she must infallibly have awakened

CHIRP THE THIRD 231

the Baby, and frightened him into something serious
(probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered
Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle
restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some
few moments silent, with her mouth wide open: and then,
posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced
in a weird, Saint Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same
time rummaged with her face and head among the bed-
clothes: apparently deriving much relief from those ex-
traordinary operations.

“Mary!” said Bertha. ‘‘ Not at the marriage! ”

“TI told her you would not be there, Mum,” whispered
Caleb. ‘I heard as much last night. But bless you,”
said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands,
“IT don’t care for what they say; J don’t believe them.
There an’t much of me, but that little should be torn to
pieces sooner than I’d trust a word against you! ”

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a
child might have hugged one of his own dolls.

“ Bertha couldn’t stay at home this morning,” said
Caleb. ‘‘ She was afraid, I know, to hear the Bells ring:
and couldn’t trust herself to be so near them on her wedding-
day. So we started in good time, and came here. I have
been thinking of what I have done,” said Caleb, after a
moment’s pause; “‘ I have been blaming myself till I hardly
knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind
I have caused her; and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d
better, if you’ll stay with me, Mum, the while, tell her the
truth. You'll stay with me the while?” he inquired,
trembling from head to foot. ‘ I don’t know what effect
it may have upon her; I don’t know what she’ll think of
me; I don’t know that she’ll ever care for her poor father
afterwards. But it’s best for her that she should be un-
deceived; and I must bear the consequences as I deserve! ””

“Mary,” said Bertha, “where is your hand? Ah!
Here it is; here it is! ” pressing it to her lips, with a smile,
and drawing it through her arm. “ I heard them speaking
softly among themselves, last night, of some blame against
you. They were wrong.”

The Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her.

“‘ They were wrong,” he said.

“IT knew it!” cried Bertha, proudly. ‘“ I told them so.
I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!” she

232 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek
against her face. ‘‘ No! Iam not so blind as that. :

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained
upon the other: holding her hand. ;

“I know you all,” said Bertha, “ better than you think.
But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is
nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. If I
could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were
spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My Sister!”

“ Bertha, my dear!” said Caleb, “ I have something on
my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear
me kindly! I have a confession to make to you, my
Darling.”

“A confession, father? ”

“IT have wandered from the Truth and lost myself,
my child,” said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his be-
wildered face. ‘‘ I have wandered from the Truth, intend-
ing to be kind to you; and have been cruel.”

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and
repeated “ Cruel! ”

““He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,” said Dot.
“ You'll say so, presently. You'll be the first to tell him
so.”

‘Fle cruel to me!” cried Bertha, with a smile of in-
credulity.

““ Not meaning it, my child,” said Caleb. ‘‘ But I have
been; though 1 never suspected it, till yesterday. My
dear Blind Daughter, hear me and forgive me! The world
you live in, heart of mine, doesn’t exist as I have represented
it. ‘The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you.”

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still;
but drew back, and clung closer to her friend.

“ Your road in life was rough, my poor one,” said Caleb,
“and I meant to smooth it for you. Ihave altered objects,
changed the characters of people, invented many things that
never have been, to make you happier. I have had con-
cealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me!
and surrounded you with fancies.”

“ But living people are not fancies? ” she said, hurriedly,
and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. ‘“ You
can’t change them.”

“I have done so, Bertha,” pleaded Caleb, ‘“ There is
one person that you know, my Dove——”

CHIRP THE THIRD 233

“Oh, father! why do you say, I know? ” she answered,
in a tone of keen reproach. ‘“‘ What and whom do J know?
I who have no leader! I so miserably blind! ”

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands,
as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a
manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face.

“The marriage that takes place to-day,” said Caleb,
*‘is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to
you and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks,
and in his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what
I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In
everything.”

“ Oh, why,’’ cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed,
almost beyond endurance, ‘‘ why did you ever do this!
Why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in
like Death, and tear away the objects of my love! Oh,
Heaven, how blind Iam! How helpless and alone! ”’

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply
but in his penitence and sorrow.

She had been but a short time in this passion of regret,
when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her,
began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing
way. It was so mournful, that her tears began to flow;
and when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier
all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they
fell down like rain.

She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon; and was
conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering
about her father.

“Mary,” said the Blind Girl, ‘‘ tell me what my Home is.
What it truly is.”

‘‘ Tt is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed.
The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another
winter. Itis as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,”

_ Dot continued in a low, clear voice, ‘‘ as your poor father
in his sackcloth coat.”

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier’s
little wife aside.

“Those presents that I took such care of, that came
almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,”
she said, trembling; ‘‘ where did they come from? Did
you send them? ””

SINOs,

234 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

““ Who, then? ”

Dot saw she knew, already; and was silent. The Blind
Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite
another manner now.

“Dear Mary, a moment. One moment! More this
way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You'd
not deceive me now; would you? ”

“No, Bertha, indeed! ”

‘““No, I am sure you would not. You have too much
pity forme. Mary, look across the room to where we were
just now; to where my father is—my father, so compassion-
ate and loving to me—and tell me what you see.”

“‘T see,” said Dot, who understood her well; “ an old
man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back,
with his face resting on his hand. As if his child should
comfort him, Bertha.”’

“Yes, yes. She will. Go on.”

“ He is an old man, worn with care and work. Heisa
spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him
now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against
nothing. But Bertha, I have seen him many times before;
and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object.
And I honour his grey head, and bless him! ”

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing her-
self upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her
breast.

“It is my sight restored. It is my sight!’ she cried.
“ Thave been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never
knew him! To think I might have died, and never truly
seen the father who has been so loving to me! ”

There were no words for Caleb’s emotion.

“There is not a gallant figure on this earth,’”’ exclaimed
the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, ‘‘ that I would
love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this!
The greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father. Never let
them say Iam blind again. There’s not a furrow in his face,
there’s not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in
my prayers and thanks to Heaven! ”

Caleb managed to articulate “‘ My Bertha!”

“And in my Blindness, I believed him,” said the girl,
caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, ‘‘ to be so
different! And having him beside me, day by day, so mind-
ful of me always, never dreamed of this! ”

CHIRP THE THIRD 235

“The fresh, smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,” said
poor Caleb. ‘“ He’s gone!”

“Nothing is gone,” she answered. ‘“ Dearest father,
no! Everything is here—in you. ‘The father that I loved
so well; the father that I never loved enough, and never
knew; the Benefactor whom I first began to reverence
and love, because he had such sympathy for me. All are
here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The Soul of all that
was most dear to me is here—here, with the worn face, and
the grey head. And I am nor blind, father, any longer! ”

Dot’s whole attention had been concentrated, during
this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking
now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow,
she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of strik-
ing; and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited
state.

“ Father,” said Bertha, hesitating. ‘“ Mary.”

“Yes, my dear,” returned Caleb. “ Here she is.’’

* There is no changein her. You never told me anything
of her that was not true? ”

““T should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,” returned
Caleb, “‘ if I could have made her better than she was. But
I must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed her
at all. Nothing could improve her, Bertha.”

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the
question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed
embrace of Dot, were charming to behold.

“More changes than you think for may happen, though,
my dear,” said Dot. ‘‘ Changes for the better, I mean;
changes for great joy to some of us. You mustn’t let them
startle you too much, if any such should ever happen, and
affect you! Are those wheels upon the road? You’ve
a quick ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?”

“Yes. Coming very fast.”

«« T—I—I know you have a quick ear,” said Dot, placing
her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as
she could, to hide its palpitating state, ‘‘ because I have
noticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out
that strange step last night. Though why you should have
said, as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, ‘ whose
step is that!’ and why you should have taken any greater
observation of it than of any other step, I don’t know,
Though, as I said just now, there are great changes in the

236 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

world: great changes: and we can’t do better than prepare
ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything.”

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she
spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her,
with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she
could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save her-
self from falling.

“They are wheels indeed!” she panted, “ coming
nearer! Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them
stopping at the garden gate! And now you hear a step
outside the door—the same step, Bertha, is it not!—and
now! Se

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and
running up to Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young
man rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the
air, came sweeping down upon them.

“Ts it over? ” cried Dot.

<a Youte

** Happily over? ”

Pe venta

“Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever
hear the like of it before? ” cried Dot.

“Tf my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive——”
said Caleb, trembling.

“He is alive!” shrieked Dot, removing her hands from
his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; ‘look at him!
See where he stands before you, healthy and strong! ‘Your
own dear son! Your own dear living, loving brother,
Berthal ”

All honour to the little creature for her transports!
All honour to her tears and laughter, when the three were
locked in one another’s arms! All honour to the heartiness
with which she met the sunburnt Sailor-fellow, with his
dark streaming hair, half way, and never turned her rosy
little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and
to press her to his bounding heart!

And honour to the Cuckoo, too—why not!—for bursting
out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a house-
breaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled
company, as if he had got drunk for joy!

The Carrier, entering, started back: and well he might:
to find himself in such good company.

“Look, John!” said Caleb, exultingly, “look here}?

CHIRP THE THIRD 237

My own boy from the Golden South Americas! My own
son! Him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself;
him that you were always such a friend to! ”

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but
recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remem-
brance of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said:

“ Edward! Was it you?”

“ Now tell him all!” cried Dot. “ Tell him all, Edward;
and don’t spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself
in his eyes, ever again.”

““T was the man,” said Edward.

“‘ And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your
old friend?” rejoined the Carrier. ‘‘ There was a frank
boy once—how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that
he was dead, and had it proved, we thought?—-who never
would have done that.”

“There was a generous friend of mine once: more a
father to me than a friend,” said Edward, ‘‘ who never would
have judged me, or any other man, unheard. You were he.
So I am certain you will hear me now.”

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still
kept far away from him, replied, ‘‘ Well! that’s but fair.
I will.’

“You must know that when I left here, a boy,” said
Edward, ‘“‘ I was in love; and my love was returned. She
was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me)
didn’t know her own mind. But I knew mine; and I hada
passion for her.”

“You had!” exclaimed the Carrier. ‘‘ You!”

“Indeed I had,’ returned the other. ‘‘ And she re-
turned it. I have ever since believed she did; and now I
am sure she did.”

“ Heaven help me! ” said the Carrier. ‘‘ This is worse
than all.”

“Constant to her,” said Edward, ‘“‘ and returning, full
of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part
of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was
false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed
herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to
reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond
dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been
forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It
would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought:

238 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

andonIcame. That I might have the truth, the real truth;
observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without
obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence
(if I had any) before her, on the other; I dressed myself
unlike myself—you know how; and waited on the road—
you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had
—had she,” pointing to Dot, “ until I whispered in her ear
at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.”

“‘ But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had
come back,” sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she
had burned to do, all through this narrative; “‘ and when she
knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his
secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much
too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice—being
a clumsy man in general,’”’ said Dot, half laughing and half
crying—* to keep it for him. And when she—that’s me,
John,” sobbed the little woman—* told him all, and how
his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she
had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a
marriage which the silly dear old thing called advantageous;
and when she—that’s me again, John—told him they were
not yet married (though close upon it), and that it would
be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love
on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear
it; then she—that’s me again—said she would go between
them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and
would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she
—me again, John—said and thought was right. And it
was right, John. And they were brought together, John!
And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here’s
the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor!
And I’m a happy little woman, May, God bless you! ”

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything
to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in
her present transports. There never were congratulations
so endearing and delicious, as those she lavished on herself
and on the Bride.

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast the honest
Carrier had stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards her,
Dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as
before.

““No, John, no! Hear all! Don’t love me any more,
John, till you’ve heard every word I have to say. It was

CHIRP THE THIRD 239

wrong to have a secret from you, John. I’m very sorry.
I didn’t think it any harm, till I came and sat down by you
on the little stool last night; but when I knew by what was
written in your face, that you had seen me walking in the
gallery with Edward: and knew what you thought; I felt
how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, how
could you, could you, think so! ”

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peery-
bingle would have caught her in his arms. But no; she
wouldn’t let him.

“Don’t love me yet, please John! Not for a long time
yet! When I was sad about this intended marriage, dear,
it was because I remembered May and Edward such young
lovers, and knew that her heart was far away from Tackle-
ton. You believe that, now. Don’t you, John?”

John was going to make another rush at this appeal;
but she stopped him again.

““No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you,
as I sometimes do, John; and call you clumsy, and a dear
old goose, and names of that sort, it’s because I love you,
John, so well; and take such pleasure in your ways; and
wouldn’t see you altered in the least respect to have you
made a King to-morrow.”

“ Hooroar!”’ said Caleb, with unusual vigour. ‘‘ My
opinion! ”

“And when I speak of people being middle-aged and
steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple,
going on in a jogtrot sort of way, it’s only because I’m such
a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act a kind
of Play with Baby, and all that: and make believe.”

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again.
But she was very nearly too late.

“‘No, don’t love me for another minute or two, if you
please, John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept
to the last. My dear, good, generous John; when we were
talking the other night about the Cricket, I had it on my
lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so dearly
as I do now; that when I first came home here, I was half
afraid I mightn’t learn to love you every bit as well as I
hoped and prayed I might—being so very young, John,
But, dear John, every day and hour, I loved you more and
more. And if I could have loved you better than I do, the
noble words I heard you say this morning would have made

240 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

me. But I can’t. All the affection that I had (it was a
great deal, John) I gave you, as you well deserve, long, long
ago, and I have no more left to give. Now, my dear
Husband, take me to your heart again! That’s my home,
John; and never, never, think of sending me to any other! ”

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a
glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you
would have felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier’s
embrace. It was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-
fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all
your days.

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect
rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise: and you
may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who
cried copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her young
charge in the general interchange of congratulations,
handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, as if it
were something to drink. 7

But now the sound of wheels was heard again outside th
door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton
was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman
appeared; looking warm and flustered.

“Why, what the Devil’s this, John Peerybingle? ” said
Tackleton. ‘‘ There’s some mistake. I appointed Mrs.
Tackleton to meet me at the church; and I'll swear I passed
her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I beg
your pardon, Sir; I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you;
but if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady,
she has rather a particular engagement this morning.”

* But Tean’t spare her,” returned Edward. “ I couldn’t
think of it.”

“What do you mean, you vagabond? ” said Tackleton.

““T mean, that as I can make allowance for your being
vexed,” returned the other, with a smile, “‘ I am as deaf to
harsh discourse this morning, as I was to all discourse last
night.”

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start
he gave! :

“Tam sorry, Sir,” said Edward, holding out May’s left
hand, and especially the third finger, “‘ that the young lady
can’t accompany you to church; but as she has been there
once, this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her.”

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger; and took a

CHIRP THE THIRD 241

litle piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring,
from his waistcoat pocket.

“Miss Slowboy,” said Tackleton. ‘ Will you have the
kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank’ee.”

“It was a previous engagement: quite an old engage-
ment; that prevented my wife from keeping her appoint-
ment with you, I assure you,” said Edward.

“Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge
that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told
him, many times, I never could forget it,” said May,
blushing.

“Oh, certainly!” said Tackleton. ‘“‘ Oh, to be sure.
Oh, it’s all right. It’s quite correct. Mrs. Edward
Plummer, I infer? ”

“ That’s the name,” returned the bridegroom.

“Ah! I shouldn’t have known you, Sir,” said Tackle-
ton: scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow.
“‘ T give you joy, Sir!”

“ Thank’ee.”’

“Mrs. Peerybingle,” said Tackleton, turning suddenly
to where she stood with her husband: ‘‘I am sorry. You
haven’t done me a very great kindness, but upon my life I
am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John
Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that’s
enough. It’s quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and
perfectly satisfactory. Good morning! ”

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself
off too; merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and
favours from his horse’s head, and to kick that animal once
in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a
screw loose in his arrangements.

Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a
day of it, as should mark these events for a high Feast and
Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Ac-
cordingly, Dot went to work to produce such an entertain-
ment, as should reflect undying honour on the house and
every one concerned; and in a very short space of time she
was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the
Carrier’s coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to
give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, and
peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots
full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all
sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants,

242 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on
a point of life or death, ran against each other in alJ the
doorways and round all the corners; and everybody tumbled.
over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never
came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the theme
of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the
passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap
in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the
garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby’s
head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every de-
scription of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Noth-
ing was in use that day that didn’t come, at some time or
other, into close acquaintance with it.

Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and
find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that
excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force if
needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the Ex-
pedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms
at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever
she should have lived to see the day! and couldn’t be got
to say anything else, except “‘ Now carry me to the grave; ”’
which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or
anything at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into a state
of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that un-
fortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo
Trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during
her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely;
and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged
they wouldn’t trouble themselves about her,—for what was
she? oh, dear! a nobody!—but would forget that such a
being lived, and would take their course in life without her.
From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an angry
one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression
that the worm would turn if trodden on; and after that, she
yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her
their confidence, what might she not have had it in her
power to suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her
feelings, the Expedition embraced her; and she very soon
had her gloves on, and was on her way to John Peerybingle’s
in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel
at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite
as stiff, as a Mitre.

Then, there were Dot’s father and mother to come, in

CHIRP THE THIRD 243

another little chaise; and they were behind their time; and
fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for
them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding always would look
in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and being
apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking
where she pleased. At last they came: a chubby little
couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way
that quite belonged to the Dot family: and Dot and her
mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. They were so
like each other.

Then, Dot’s mother had to renew her acquaintance with
May’s mother; and May’s mother always stood on her
gentility; and Dot’s mother never stood on anything but
her active little feet. And old Dot: so to call Dot’s father;
I forgot it wasn’t his right name, but never mind: took
liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think
a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn’t defer
himself at all to the Indigo Trade, but said there was no help
for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding’s summing up, was a good-
natured kind of man-——but coarse, my dear.

I wouldn’t have missed Dot doing the honours in her
wedding-gown: my benison on her bright face! for any
money. No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy,
at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh sailor-
fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among
them. To have missed the dinner would have been to
miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and
to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank
The Wedding Day, would have been the greatest miss
of all.

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling
Bowl! As I’m a living man: hoping to keep so, for a year
or two: he sang it through.

And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred,
just as he finished the last verse.

There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering
in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with
something heavy on his head. Setting this down in the
middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts
and apples, he said:

“Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got no
use for the cake himself, p’raps you'll eat it.”

And with those words. he walked off.

244 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

There was some surprise among the company, as you may
imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discern-
ment, suggested that the cake was poisoned; and related
a narrative of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had
turned a siminary for young ladies, blue. But she was
overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May,
with much ceremony and rejoicing.

I don’t think any one had tasted it, when there came
another tap at the door; and the same man appeared again,
having under his arm a vast brown paper parcel.

“Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and he’s sent a few toys
for the Babby. They ain’t ugly.”

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired
again.

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty
in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had
ample time to seek them. But they had none at all; for
the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him,
when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself
walked in.

““Mrs. Peerybingle!’’ said the Toy Merchant, hat in
hand. ‘‘I’msorry. I’m more sorry than I was this morning.
I have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! I’m sour
by disposition; but I can’t help being sweetened, more or
less, by coming face to face with such amanas you. Caleb!
This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last
night, of which I have found the thread. I blush to think
how easily I might have bound you and your daughter to
me; and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for
one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night.
I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have
scared them all away. Be gracious to me; let me join this
happy party!”

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a
fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his life,
never to have known, before, his great capacity of being
jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with him, to
have effected such a change!

“John! you won’t send me home this evening; will
you? ”’ whispered Dot.

He had been very near it, though!

There wanted but one living creature to make the party
complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was:

CHIRP THE THIRD 245

very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless
endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He
had gone with the cart to its journey’s end, very much dis-
gusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously
rebellious to the Deputy. After lingering about the stable
for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the old
horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account,
he had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before
the fire. But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the
Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got
up again, turned tail and come home.

There was a dance in the evening. With which general
mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I
had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original
dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed
in an odd way; in this way.

Edward, that sailor-fellow—a good free dashing sort of
a fellow he was—had been telling them various marvels
concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust,
when all at once he took into his head to jump up from his
seat and propose a dance; for Bertha’s harp was there, and
she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly
little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing
days were over; J think because the Carrier was smoking
his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding
had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were
over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May;
May was ready.

So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to
dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune.

Well, if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing
five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe
away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room,
and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully.
Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs.
Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old
Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off
Mrs. Dot into the middle of the dance, and is the foremost
there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly
Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy,
firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other
couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them,

is your only principle of footing it.

246 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp,
Chirp, Chirp, and how the kettle hums!

But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and
turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very
pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air,
and I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a
broken child’s toy lies upon the ground; and nothing else
remains.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE
A LOVE STORY

THIS *.
Christmas Book

TS CORDIALLY INSCRIBED TO MY ENGLISH FRIENDS
IN SWITZERLAND

THE BATTLE OF LIFE

PART THE FIRST

ONcE upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart
England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought.
It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving
grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the AI-
mighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its
enamelled cup fill high with blood that day, and shrinking
dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour from
harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by
dying men, and marked its frightened way with an un-
‘natural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the
air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ranred. The
trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen
pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses’ hoofs,
the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at the
sun.

Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon
beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black
line of distant rising ground, softened and blurred at the
edge by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the
plain, strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers’
breasts sought mothers’ eyes, or slumbered happily.
Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered
afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the
scene of that day’s work and that night’s death and suffering!
Many a lonely moon was bright upon the batUle-ground, and
many a star kept mournful watch upon it, and many a
wind from every quarter of the earth flew over it, before
the traces of the fight were worn away.

They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in
little things, for Nature, far above the evil passions of men,
soon recovered Her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty
battle-ground as she had done before, when it was innocent.

249

250 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

The larks sang high above it, the swallows skimmed and
dipped and flitted to and fro, the shadows of the flying
clouds pursued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and
turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church-spire in the
nestling town among the trees, away into the bright dis-
tance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sun-
sets faded. Crops were sown, and grew up, and were gathered
in; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a watermill;
men whistled at the plough; gleaners and haymakers were
seen in quiet groups at work; sheep and oxen pastured;
boys whooped and called, in fields, to scare away the birds;
smoke rose from cottage chimneys; sabbath bells rang
peacefully; old people lived and died; the timid creatures
of the field, and simple flowers of the bush and garden, grew
and withered in their destined terms: and all upon the
flerce and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon
thousands had been killed in the great fight.

But there were deep green patches in the growing corn
at first, that people looked at awfully. Year after year they
re-appeared; and it was known that underneath those
fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay buried, indis-
criminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who
ploughed those places, shrank from the great worms abound-
ing there; and the sheaves they yielded, were, for many a
long year, called the Battle Sheaves, and set apart; and no
one ever knew a Battle Sheaf to be among the last load
ata Harvest Home. Fora long time, every furrow that was
turned, revealed some fragments of the fight. For a long
time, there were wounded trees upon the battle-ground;
and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where
deadly struggles had been made; and trampled parts where
not a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time, no village-
girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower
from that field of death: and after many a year had come
and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to
leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.

The Seasons in their course, however, though they
passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, ob-
literated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old
conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it as the
neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they
dwindled into old wives’ tales, dimly remembered round the
winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild

*

PART THE FIRST 251

flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem
untouched, gardens arose, and houses were built, and
children played at battles on the turf. The wounded trees
had long ago made Christmas logs, and blazed and roared
away. The deep green patches were no greener now
than the memory of those who lay in the dust below.
The ploughshare still turned up from time to time some
rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say what use they
had ever served, and those who found them wondered
and disputed. An old dinted corslet, and a helmet, had been
hanging in the church so long, that the same weak half-
blind old man who tried in vain to make them out above
the whitewashed arch, had marvelled at them as a baby.
If the host slain upon the field, could have been for a
moment reanimated in the forms in which they fell, each
upon the spot that was the bed of his untimely death,
gashed and ghastly soldiers would have stared in, hundreds
deep, at household door and window; and would have risen _
on the hearths of quiet homes; and would have been the
garnered store of barns and granaries; and would have
started up between the cradled infant and its nurse; and
would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on
the mill, and crowded the orchard, and burdened the
meadow, and piled the rickyard high with dying men. So
altered was the battle-ground, where thousands upon thou-
sands had been killed in the great fight.

Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years
ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old stone
house with a honeysuckle porch: where, on a bright autumn
morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and
where two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while
some half-dozen peasant women standing on _ ladders
gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their
work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a
pleasant, lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired
spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless,
danced in the very freedom and gaicty of their hearts.

If there were no such thing as display in the world, my
private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we
might get on a great deal better than we do, and might
be infinitely more agreeable company than we are, It was
charming to see how these girls danced. They had no
spectators but the apple-pickers on the ladders. They were

252 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

very glad to please them, but they danced to please them-
selves (or at least you would have supposed so); and you
could no more help admiring, than they could help dancing.
How they did dance!

Not like opera dancers. Not at all. And not like
Madame Anybody’s finished pupils. Not the least. It
was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even
country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style,
nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English
style! though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the
Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told,
deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the
chirping little castanets. As they danced among the
orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again,
and twirled each other lightly round and round, the
influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread,
in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding circle in the
water. Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the
elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in
the morning air—the flashing leaves, their speckled shadows
on the soft green ground—the balmy wind that swept
along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill,
cheerily—everything between the two girls, and the man
and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they
showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the
world—seemed dancing too.

At last the younger of the dancing sisters, out of breath,
and laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench to rest. The
other leaned against a tree hard by. The music, a wander-
ing harp and fiddle, left off with a flourish, as if it boasted
of its freshness; though, the truth is, it had gone at such a
pace, and worked itself to such a pitch of competition with
the dancing, that it never could have held on half a minute
longer. The apple-pickers on the ladders raised a hum and
murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound,
bestirred themselves to work again, like bees.

The more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gentle-
man, who was no other than Dr. Jeddler himself—it was
Dr. Jeddler’s house and orchard, you should know, and
these were Dr. Jeddler’s daughters—came bustling out to
see what was the matter, and who the deuce played music
on his property, before breakfast. For he was a great
philosopher, Dr. Jeddler, and not very musical.

PART THE FIRST 253

“ Music and dancing to-day !’’ said the Doctor, stopping
short, and speaking to himself, “I thought they dreaded
to-day. But it’s a world of contradictions. Why, Grace;
why, Marion! ”’ he added, aloud, “is the world more mad
than usual this morning? ”

“Make some allowance for it, father, if it be,’’ replied
his younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, and
looking into his face, ‘‘ for it’s somebody’s birth-day.”

“Somebody’s birth-day, Puss,” replied the Doctor.
“Don’t you know it’s always somebody’s birthday? Did
you never hear how many new performers enter on this—
ha! ha! ha! — it’s impossible to speak gravely of it—on
this preposterous and ridiculous business called Life, every
minute? ”’

*“ No, father! ” ‘

“No, not you, of course; you’re a woman—almost,”’
said the Doctor. ‘ By-the-bye,’ and he looked into the
pretty face, still close to his, ‘‘ I suppose it’s your birthday.”

“Nol Do you really, father? ” cried his pet daughter,
pursing up her red lips to be kissed.

“There! Take my love with it,’ said the Doctor,
imprinting his upon them; and many happy returns of the
—the idea!—of the day. The notion of wishing happy
returns in such a farce as this,’’ said the Doctor to himself,
“is good! Ha! hal hal”

Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher;
and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look
upon the world as a gigantic practical joke: as something
too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man.
His system of belief has been, in the beginning, part
and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived; as
you shall presently understand.

“Well! But how did you get the music?” asked the
Doctor. ‘‘ Poultry-stealers, of course. Where did the
minstrels come from? ”

“‘ Alfred sent the music,” said his daughter Grace,
adjusting a few simple flowers in her sister’s hair, with
which, in her admiration of that youthful beauty, she had
herself adorned it half-an-hour before, and which the dancing

had disarranged.
“ Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?” returned the

Doctor.
“Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was

254 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

.

entering early. The men are travelling on foot, and rested
there last night; and as it was Marion’s birth-day, and he
thought it would please her, he sent them on, with a pen-
cilled note to me, saying that if I thought so too, they had
come to serenade her.”

‘« Ay, ay,” said the Doctor, carelessly, “ he always takes
your opinion.”

“And my opinion being favourable,” said Grace, good-
humouredly, and pausing for a moment to admire the
pretty head she decorated, with her own thrown back;
“and Marion being in high spirits, and beginning to dance,
I joined her: and so we danced to Alfred’s music till we
were out of breath. And we thought the music all the
gayer for being sent by Alfred. Didn’t we, dear Marion? ”

“Oh, I don’t know, Grace. How you tease me about
Alfred.”

“Tease you by mentioning your lover!” said her
sister.

*“*T am sure I don’t much care to have him mentioned,”
said the wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some
flowers she held, and scattering them on the ground. “I
am almost tired of hearing of him; and as to his being my
lover ”—

‘Hush! Don’t speak lightly of a true heart, which
is all your own, Marion,” cried her sister, ‘“‘ even in jest.
There is not a truer heart than Alfred’s in the world! ”

“ No—no,” said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a
pleasant air of careless consideration, ‘“‘ perhaps not. But
I don’t know that there’s any great merit in that. I-—I
don’t want him to be so very true. I never asked him. If
he expects that I But, dear Grace, why need we talk
of him at all, just now!”

It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the bloom-
ing sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, con-
versing thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet with
love responding tenderly to love. And it was very curious
indeed to see the younger sister’s eyes suffused with tears;
and something fervently and deeply felt, breaking through
the wilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully.

The difference between them, in respect of age, could not
exceed four years at most: but Grace, as often happens in
such cases, when no mother watches over both (the Doctor’s
wife was dead), seemed, in her gentle care of her young

?

PART THE FIRST 255

sister, and in the steadiness of her devotion to her, older
than she was; and more removed, in course of nature, from
all competition with her, or participation, otherwise than
through her sympathy and true affection, in her wayward
fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. Great char-
acter of mother, that, even in this shadow, and faint re-
flection of it, purifies the heart, and raises the exalted nature
nearer to the angels!

The Doctor’s reflections, as he looked after them, and
heard the purport of their discourse, were limited, at first,
to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and
likings, and the idle imposition practised on themselves by
young people, who believed, for a moment, that there could
be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always un-
deceived always!

But the home-adorning. self-denying qualities of Grace,
and her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including
so much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all ex-
pressed to him in the contrast between her quiet household
figure and that of his younger and more beautiful child; and
he was sorry for her sake—sorry for them both—that life
should be such a very ridiculous business as it was.

The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his
children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the
scheme a serious one. But then he was a Philosopher.

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled,
by chance, over that common Philosopher’s stone (much
more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist’s
researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous
men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross,
and every precious thing to poor account.

‘‘ Britain! ” cried the Doctor. ‘ Britain! Halloa!”

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discon-
tented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this
call the unceremonious acknowledgment of “‘ Now then! ”

“‘ Where’s the breakfast table? ” said the Doctor.

“‘ In the house,” returned Britain.

** Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told
last night?” said the Doctor. “ Don’t you know that
there are gentlemen coming? ‘That there’s business to be
done this morning, before the coach comes by? That this
is a very particular occasion? ” ;

“TI couldn’t do anything, Doctor Jeddler, till the

256 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

women had done getting in the apples, could I?” said
Britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was
very loud at last.

“Well, have they done now?” returned the Doctor,
looking at his watch, and clapping his hands. ‘ Come!
make haste! where’s Clemency? ”

“Here am I, Mister,” said a voice from one of the
ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly.
“It’s all done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall
be ready for you in half a minute, Mister.” :

With that she began to bustle about most vigorously;
presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar
to justify a word of introduction.

She was about thirty years old; and had a sufficiently
plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an
odd expression of tightness that made it comical. But the
extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner would
have superseded any face in the world. To say that she
had two left legs, and somebody else’s arms; and that all
four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from
perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion; is
to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she
was perfectly content and satisfied with these arrange-
ments, and regarded them as being no business of hers, and
took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to
dispose of themselves just as it happened, is to render faint
justice to her equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair
of self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her feet
went; blue stockings; a printed gown of many colours, and
the most hideous pattern procurable for money; and a
white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and always
had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which she took so
lively an interest that she was continually trying to turn
them round and get impossible views of them. In general,
a litle cap perched somewhere on her head; though it was
rarely to be met with in the place usually occupied in other
subjects, by that article of dress; but from head to foot she
was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated
lidiness. Indeed her laudable anxiety to be tidy and com-
pact in her own conscience as well as in the public eye, gave
rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to
grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part
of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and wrestle

PART THE FIRST 257

as it were with her garments, until they fell into a sym-
metrical arrangement.

Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency New-
come; who was supposed to have unconsciously originated
a corruption of her own christian name, from Clementina
(but nobody knew, for the deaf old mother, a very pheno-
menon of age, whom she had supported almost from a child,
was dead, and she had no other relation); who now busied
herself in preparing the table; and who stood, at intervals,
with her bare red arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows
with opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly,
until she suddenly remembered something else it wanted,
and jogged off to fetch it.

“Here are them two lawyers a-coming, Mister!” said
Clemency, in a tone of no very great good-will.

“ Aha!” cried the Doctor, advancing to the gate to meet

them. ‘“‘ Good morning, good morning! Grace, my dear!
Marion! Here are Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs. Where’s
Alfred? ”

* He’ll be back directly, father, no doubt,’’ said Grace.
“ He had so much to do this morning in his preparations for
departure that he was up and out by daybreak. Good
morning, gentlemen.”

“Ladies!” said Mr. Snitchey, “‘ For Self and Craggs,”
who bowed, “ good morning! Miss,’ to Marion, “I kiss
your hand.” Which he did. ‘ And I wish you ’”—which
he might or might not, for he didn’t look, at first sight, like
a gentleman troubled with many warm outpourings of soul,
in behalf of other people, ‘‘ a hundred happy returns of this
auspicious day.’

‘‘Ha ha ha!” laughed the Doctor thoughtfully, with
his hands in his pockets. “‘ The great farce in a hundred

t ”?
¥ r¢ You wouldn’t, I am sure,” said Mr. Snitchey, standing
a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table,
“cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events,

octor Jeddler.”
“ z No,” returned the Doctor. ‘‘ God forbid! May she
live to laugh at it, as long as she can laugh, and then say,
with the French wit, ‘The farce is ended; draw the
curtain.’ ” :

“The French wit,” said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply
into his blue bag, ‘‘ was wrong, Doctor Jeddler; and your

I2—I

258 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

philosophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as I have
often told you. Nothing serious in life! What do you
call law? ”

“ A joke,” replied the Doctor.

‘Did you ever go to law? ” asked Mr. Snitchey, looking
out of the blue bag.

“‘ Never,” returned the Doctor.

“Tf you ever do,” said Mr. Snitchey, “ perhaps you'll
alter that opinion.”

Craggs, who seemed to be represented by Snitchey, and
to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal
individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. It
involved the only idea of which he did not stand seized and
possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but, he had some
partners in it among the wise men of the world.

““Tt’s made a great deal too easy,” said Mr. Craggs.

“Law is?’ asked the Doctor.

“Yes,” said Mr. Craggs, “‘ everything is. Everything
appears to me to be made too easy, nowadays. It’s the
vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not pre-
pared to say it isn’t), it ought to be made a very difficult
joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, Sir, as
possible. That’s the intention. But, it’s being made far
too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. They ought to be
rusty. We shall have them beginning to turn, soon, with a
smooth sound. Whereas they ought to grate upon their
hinges, Sir.”

Mr. Craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own
hinges, as he delivered this opinion; to which he communi-
cated immense effect—heing a cold, hard, dry man, dressed
in grey and white, like a flint; with small twinkles in his
eyes, as if something struck sparks out of them. The three
natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a fanciful representative
among this brotherhood of disputants: for Snitchey was like
a magpie or a raven (only not so sleek), and the Doctor had
a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and there
a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very
little bit of pigtail behind, that stood for the stalk.

As the active figure of a handsome young man, dressed
for a journey, and followed by a porter, bearing several
packages and baskets, entered the orchard at a brisk pace,
and with an air of gaiety and hope that accorded well with
the morning,—these three drew together, like the brothers

PART THE FIRST 259

of the sister Fates, or like the Graces most effectually dis-
guised, or like the three weird prophets on the heath, and
greeted him.

“ Happy returns, Alf,’’ said the Doctor, lightly.

“A hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, Mr.
Heathfield,” said Snitchey, bowing low.

“Returns! ’’ Craggs murmured in a deep voice, all
alone.

“Why, what a battery!” exclaimed Alfred, stopping
short, “‘ and one—two—three—all foreboders of no good,
in the great sea before me. I am glad you are not the first
I have met this morning: I should have taken it for a bad
omen. But Grace was the first—-sweet, pleasant Grace—
so I defy you all! ”

“ Tf you please, Mister, IJ was the first you know,” said
Clemency Newcome. ‘‘ She was a walking out here, before
sunrise, you remember. I was in the house.”

“ That’s true! Clemency was the first,’’ said Alfred.
“So I defy you with Clemency.”

“Ha, ha, ha!—for Self and Craggs,” said Snitchey.
“ What a defiance! ” ;

““ Not so bad a one as it appears, may be,’’ said Alfred,
shaking hands heartily with the Doctor, and also with
Snitchey and Craggs, and then looking round. ‘‘ Where
are the—Good Heavens! ”

With a start, productive for the moment of a closer
partnership between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas Craggs
than the subsisting articles of agreement in that wise con-
templated, he hastily betook himself to where the sisters
stood together, and—however, I needn’t more particularly
explain his manner of saluting Marion first, and Grace after-
wards, than by hinting that Mr. Craggs may possibly have
considered it “‘ too easy.”

Perhaps to change the subject, Doctor Jeddler made a
hasty move towards the breakfast, and they all sat down at
table. Grace presided; but so discreetly stationed herself,
as to cut off her sister and Alfred from the rest of the com-
pany. Snitchey and Craggs sat at opposite corners, with
the blue bag between them for safety; and the Doctor took
his usual position, opposite to Grace. Clemency hovered
galvanically about the table, as waitress; and the melan-
choly Britain, at another and a smaller board, acted as
Grand Carver of a round of beef and a ham.

260 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“ Meat? ” said Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey, with
the carving knife and fork in his hands, and throwing the
question at him like a missile.

“ Certainly,” returned the lawyer.

“Do you want any?” to Craggs.

“‘ Lean, and well done,’ replied that gentleman.

Having executed these orders, and moderately supplied
the Doctor (he seemed to know that nobody else wanted
anything to eat), he lingered as near the Firm as he decently
could, watching, with an austere eye, their disposition of the
viands, and but once relaxing the severe expression of his
face. This was on the occasion of Mr. Craggs, whose teeth
were not of the best, partially choking, when he cried out
with great animation, “ I thought he was gone!”

“* Now, Alfred,’ said the Doctor, “‘ for a word or two of
business, while we are yet at breakfast.”’

*“ While we are yet at breakfast,” said Snitchey and
Craggs, who seemed to have no present idea of leaving off.

Although Alfred had not been breakfasting, and seemed
to have quite enough business on his hands as it was, he
respectfully answered:

“ If you please, Sir.”

“If anything could be serious,” the Doctor began, “in
such a—”

“Farce as this, Sir,” hinted Alfred.

“In such a farce as this,’’ observed the Doctor, “ it
might be this recurrence, on the eve of separation, of a
double birth-day, which is connected with many associations
pleasant to us four, and with the recollection of a long and
amicable intercourse. That’s not to the purpose.”

“Ah! yes, yes, Doctor Jeddler,”’ said the young man.
“Tt is to the purpose. Much to the purpose, as my heart
bears witness this morning; and as yours does too, I know,
if you would let it speak. I leave your house to-day; I
cease to be your ward to-day; we part with tender relations
stretching far behind us, that never can be exactly renewed,
and with others dawning yet before us,’’ he looked down at
Marion beside him, ‘ fraught with such considerations as I
must not trust myself to speak of now. Come, come!” he
added, rallying his spirits and the Doctor at once, “ there’s
a serious grain in this large foolish dust-heap, Doctor. Let
us allow to-day that there is One.”

“To-day!” cried the Doctor. ‘Hear him! Ha, ha,

PART THE FIRST 261

ha! Of all days in the foolish year. Why, on this day, the
great battle was fought on this ground. On this ground
where we now sit, where I saw my two girls dance this
morning, where the fruit has just been gathered for our
eating from these trees, the roots of which are struck in
Men, not earth,—so many lives were lost, that within my
recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of
bones, and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has
been dug up from underneath our feet here. Yet not a
hundred people in that battle, knew for what they fought, or
why; not a hundred of the inconsiderate rejoicers in the
victory, why they rejoiced. Not half a hundred people
were the better, for the gain or loss. Not half-a-dozen
men agree to this hour on the cause or merits; and nobody,
in short, ever knew anything distinct about it, but the
mourners of the slain. Serious, too!” said the Doctor,
laughing. ‘‘ Such a system! ”

* But all this seems to me,” said Alfred, “to be very
serious.”

“Serious! ’’ cried the Doctor. “If you allowed such
things to be serious, you must go mad, or die, or climb up
to the top of a mountain, and turn hermit.”

“ Besides—so long ago,”’ said Alfred.

“Long ago!’ returned the Doctor. “Do you know
what the world has been doing, ever since? Do you know
what else it has been doing? I don’t!”

“It has gone to law a little,” observed Mr. Snitchey,
stirring his tea.

“« Although the way out has been always made too easy,”
said his partner.

“ And you’ll excuse my saying, Doctor,’’ pursued Mr.
Snitchey, ‘‘ having been already put a thousand times in
possession of my opinion, in the course of our discussions,
that, in its having gone to law, and in its legal system alto-
gether, I do observe a serious side—now, really, a something
tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it #4

Clemency Newcome made an angular tumble against the
table, occasioning a sounding clatter among the cups and
saucers.

“ Heyday! what’s the matter there?” exclaimed the
Doctor.

“Tt’s this evil-inclined blue bag,’ said Clemency,
“ always tripping up somebody! ”

262 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying,”
resumed Snitchey, ‘‘ that commands respect. Life a farce,
Doctor Jeddler! With law in it?”

The Doctor laughed, and looked at Alfred.

“Granted, if you please, that war is foolish,” said
Snitchey. ‘‘ There we agree. For example. Here’s a
smiling country,” pointing it out with his fork, “‘ once over-
run by soldiers—trespassers every man of ’em—and laid
waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The idea of any
man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword!
Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your
fellow-creatures, you know, when you think of it! But take
this smiling country as it stands. Think of the laws ap-
pertaining to real property; to the bequest and devise of
real property; to the mortgage and redemption of real
property; to leasehold, freehold, and copyhold estate;
think,” said Mr. Snitchey, with such great emotion that he
actually smacked his lips, “‘ of the complicated laws relating
to title and proof of title, with all the contradictory pre-
cedents and numerous acts of parliament connected with
them; think of the infinite number of ingenious and intermin-
able chancery suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give
rise;—and acknowledge, Doctor Jeddler, that there isa green
spot in the scheme about us! I believe,’’ said Mr. Snitchey,
looking at his partner, “‘ that I speak for Self and Craggs? ”

Mr. Craggs having signified assent, Mr. Snitchey, some-
what freshened by his recent eloquence, observed that he
would take a little more beef, and another cup of tea.

“I don’t stand up for life in general,’ he added, rubbing
his hands and chuckling, “ it’s full of folly; full of some-
thing worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and un-
selfishness, and all that. Bah, bah, bah! We see what
they're worth. But you mustn’t laugh at life; you've
got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! Every-
body’s playing against you, you know; and you're playing
against them. Oh! it’s a very interesting thing. There
are deep moves upon the board. You must only laugh,
Doctor Jeddler, when you win; and then not much. He,
he, he! And then not much,” repeated Snitchey, rolling
his head and winking his eye; as if he would have added,
“you may do this instead!”

“Well, Alfred! ’’ cried the Doctor, “ what do you say
now?”

PART THE FIRST 263

“TI say, Sir,” replied Alfred, “ that the greatest favour
you could do me, and yourself too I am inclined to think,
would be to try sometimes to forget this battle-field, and
others like it, in that broader battle-field of Life, on which
the sun looks every day.”

“Really, I’m afraid that wouldn’t soften his opinions,
Mr. Alfred,” said Snitchey. ‘The combatants are very
eager and very bitter in that same battle of Life. There’s
a great deal of cutting and slashing, and firing into people’s
heads from behind; terrible treading down, and trampling
on; it’s rather a bad business.”

“ T believe, Mr. Snitchey,’’ said Alfred, “ there are quiet
victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble
acts of heroism, in it—even in many of its apparent light-
nesses and contradictions—not the less difficult to achieve,
because they have no earthly chronicle or audience; done
every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and
in men’s and women’s hearts—any one of which might
reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with
belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were
at war, and another fourth at law; and that’s a bold word.”

Both the sisters listened keenly.

““ Well, well! ”’ said the Doctor, “‘ Iam too old to be con-
verted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster
sister, Martha Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic
trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising life with all sorts
of people ever since; and who is so much of your opinion
(only she’s less reasonable and more obstinate, being a
woman), that we can’t agree, and seldom meet. I was born
upon this battlefield. I began, as a boy, to have my
thoughts directed to the real history of a battle-field.
Sixty years have gone over my head; and I have never
seen the Christian world, including Heaven knows how
many loving mothers and good enough girls, like mine
here, anything but mad for a battle-field. The same
contradictions prevail in everything. One must either laugh
or cry at such stupendous inconsistencies; and I prefer to
laugh.”

Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most
melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn, seemed
suddenly to decide in favour of the same preference, if a
deep sepulchral sound that escaped him might be con-
strued into a demonstration of risibility. His face, how-

264 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

ever, was so perfectly unaffected by it, both before and after-

wards, that although one or two of the breakfast party
~ looked round as being startled by a mysterious noise,
nobody connected the offender with it.

Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome;
who, rousing him with one of those favourite joints, her elbows,
inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he laughed at.

“Not you!” said Britain.

“* Who, then? ”’

‘ Humanity,” said Britain. ‘“‘ That’s the joke.”

‘““ What between master and them lawyers, he’s getting
more and more addle-headed every day!’ cried Clemency,
giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimu-
lant. ‘‘ Do you know where youare? Do you want to get
warning? ”

‘*T don’t know anything,” said Britain, with a leaden
eye and an immovable visage. ‘* I don’t care for anything.
I don’t make out anything. I don’t believe anything.
And I don’t want anything.”

Although this forlorn summary of his general condition
may have been overcharged in an access of despondency,
Benjamin Britain—sometimes called Little Britain, to
distinguish him from Great; as we might say Young
England, to express Old England with a difference—had
defined his real state more accurately than might be sup-
posed. For serving as a sort of man Miles, to the Doctor's
Irriar Bacon; and listening day after day to innumerable
orations addressed by the Doctor to various people, ail
tending to show that his very existence was at best a mis-
take and an absurdily; this unfortunate servitor had fallen,
by degrees, into such an abyss of confused and contradictory
suggestions from within and without, that Truth at the
bottom of her well, was on the level surface as compared
with Britain in the depths of his mystification. The only
point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new element
usually brought into these discussions by Snitchey and
Craggs, never served to make them clearer, and always
seemed to give the Doctor a species of advantage and con-
firmation. Therefore he looked upon the Firm as one of the
proximate causes of his state of mind, and held them in
abhorrence accordingly.

“‘ But this is not our business, Alfred,’’ said the Doctor.
“ Ceasing to be my ward (as you have said) to-day; and

PART THE FIRST 265

leaving us full to the brim of such learning as the Grammar
School down here was able to give you, and your studies
in London could add to that, and such practical knowledge
as a dull old country Doctor like myself could graft upon
both; you are away, now, into the world. The first term of
probation appointed by your poor father, being over, away
you go now, your own master, to fulfil his second desire:
and long before your three years’ tour among the foreign
schools of medicine is finished, yoy’ll have forgotten us.
Lord, you'll forget us easily in six months! ”

“Tf I do—But you know better; why should I speak
to you!” said Alfred, laughing.

““ Tdon’t know anything of the sort,’’ returned the Doctor.
“ What do you say, Marion? ”

Marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say—but
she didn’t say it—that he was welcome to forget them, if he
could. Grace pressed the blooming face against her cheek,
and smiled.

““T haven’t been, I hope, a very unjust steward in the
execution of my trust,’ pursued the Doctor; “‘ but I am to
be, at any rate, formally discharged, and released, and what
not, this morning; and here are our good friends Snitchey
and Craggs, with a bagful of papers, and accounts, and docu-
ments, for the transfer of the balance of the trust fund to
you (I wish it was a more difficult one to dispose of, Alfred,
but you must get to be a great man and make it so), and
other drolleries of that sort, which are to be signed, sealed,
and delivered.”

«« And duly witnessed, as by law required,” said Snitchey,
pushing away his plate, and taking out the papers, which his
partner proceeded to spread upon the table; * and Self and
Craggs having been co-trustees with you, Doctor, in so far
as the fund was concerned, we shall want your two servants
to attest the signatures—can you read, Mrs. Newcome? ”

“T a’n’t married, Mister,” said Clemency.

“ Oh, I beg your pardon. I should think not,” chuckled
Snitchey, casting his eyes over her extraordinary figure.
“You can read?”

“A little,’ answered Clemency.

“The marriage service, night and morning, eh?”
observed the lawyer, jocosely.

“No,” said Clemency. ‘Too hard, I only reads a
thimble.”

266 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“ Read a thimble! ” echoed Snitchey. ‘“‘ What are you
talking about, young woman? ”

Clemency nodded. ‘‘ And a nutmeg-grater.”

“Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High
Chancellor! ” said Snitchey, staring at her.

“‘ If possessed of any property,” stipulated Craggs.

Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the
articles in question bore an engraved motto, and so formed
the pocket library of Clemency Newcome, who was not
much given to the study of books.

“ Oh, that’s it, is it, Miss Grace! ’’ said Snitchey. ‘“‘ Yes,
yes. Ha, ha,ha! I thought our friend was an idiot. She
looks uncommonly like it,” he muttered, with a super-
cilious glance. ‘‘ And what does the thimble say, Mrs.
Newcome? ”

** T a’n’t married, Mister,’ observed Clemency.

“Well, Newcome. Will that do?” said the lawyer.
“What does the thimble say, Newcome? ”

How Clemency, before replying to this question, held
one pocket open, and looked down into its yawning depths
for the thimble which wasn’t there,—and how she then held
an opposite pocket open, and seeming to descry it, like a
pearl of great price, at the bottom, cleared away such inter-
vening obstacles as a handkerchief, an end of wax candle,
a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp bone,
a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath, more expressively
describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of
loose beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet
collection of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles
she entrusted individually and severally to Britain to hold,
—is of no consequence. Nor how, in her determination to
grasp this pocket by the throat and keep it prisoner (for it
had a tendency to swing and twist itself round the nearest
corner), she assumed. and calmly maintained, an attitude
apparently inconsistent with the human anatomy and the
laws of gravity. It is enough that at last she triumph-
antly produced the thimble on her finger, and rattled the
nutmeg-grater; the literature of both those trinkets being
obviously in course of wearing out and wasting away,
through excessive friction.

“That's the thimble, is it, young woman?” said Mr.
Snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. ‘‘ And what
does the thimble say? ”

PART THE FIRST 267

“It says,” replied Clemency, reading slowly round it
as if it were a tower, “‘ For-get and for-give.”

Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. “So new!”
said Snitchey. ‘So easy!” said Craggs. ‘‘ Such a know-
ledge of human nature in it,” said Snitchey. “‘ So applicable
to the affairs of life,” said Craggs.

“And the nutmeg-grater? ” inquired the head of the
Firm.

“The grater says,’’ returned Clemency, “ Do as you—
wold—be—done by.”

““« Do, or you'll be done brown,’ you mean,” said Mr.
Snitchey.

“TY don’t understand,’ retorted Clemency, shaking
her head vaguely. ‘I a’n’t no lawyer.”

“Tam afraid that if she was, Doctor,” said Mr. Snitchey,
turning to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that
might otherwise be consequent on this retort, ‘‘ she’d find
it to be the golden rule of half her clients. They are serious
enough in that—whimsical as your world is—and lay the
blame on us afterwards. We, in our profession, are little
else than mirrors after all, Mr. Alfred; but we are generally
consulted by angry and quarrelsome people, who are not
in their best looks; and it’s rather hard to quarrel with us
if we reflect unpleasant aspects. I think,’ said Mr. Snitchey,
“that I speak for Self and Craggs? ”

“ Decidedly,” said Craggs.

“And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful
of ink,’ said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, “ we'll
sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will
be coming past before we know where we are.”

If one might judge from his appearance, there was
every probability of the coach coming past before Mr.
Britain knew where he was; for he stood in a state
of abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor against
the lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their
clients against both; and engaged in feeble attempts to
make the thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him)
square with everybody’s system of philosophy; and, in
short, bewildering himself as much as ever his great name-
sake has done with theories and schools. But Clemency,
who was his good Genius—though he had the meanest
possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her
seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and

268 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time
—having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the
further service of recalling him to himself by the application
of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his
memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than
usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk.

How he laboured under an apprehension not uncommon
to persons in his degree, to whom the use of pen and ink
is an event, that he couldn’t append his name to a document,
not of his own writing, without committing himself in some
shadowy manner, or somehow signing away vague and
enormous sums of money; and how he approached the deeds
under protest, and by dint of the Doctor’s coercion, and
insisted on pausing to look at them before writing (the
cramped hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so
much Chinese to him), and also on turning them round to
see whether there was anything fraudulent, underneath;
and how, having signed his name, he became desolate as
one who had parted with his property and rights; I want the
time to tell. Also, how the blue bag containing his signature
afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he
couldn’t leave it; also, how Clemency Newcome, in an
ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance and
dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two elbows
like a spread eagle, and reposed her head upon her left arm
as a preliminary to the formation of certain cabalistic
characters, which required a deal of ink, and imaginary
counterparts whereof she executed at the same time with
her tongue. Also how, having once tasted ink, she became
thirsty in that regard, as tigers are said to be after tasting
another sort of fluid, and wanted to sign everything, and
put her name in all kinds of places. In brief, the Doctor
was discharged of his trust and all its responsibilities; and
Alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly started on the
journey of life.

“ Britain!’ said the Doctor. ‘Run to the gate, and
watch for the coach. ‘Time flies, Alfred! ”

“Yes, Sir, yes,” returned the young man, hurriedly.
“Dear Grace! Amoment! Marion—so young and beautiful,
so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing
else in life is—remember! I leave Marion to you!”

“ She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She
is doubly so now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me.”

PART THE FIRST 269

“I do believe it, Grace.- I know it well. Who could
look upon your face, and hear your earnest voice, and not
know it! Ah, good Grace! If I had your well-governed
heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this
place to-day! ”

“Would you? ” she answered, with a quiet smile.

“ And yet, Grace—Sister, seems the natural word.”

“Use it!” she said quickly. “I am glad to hear it,
call me nothing else.”

“And yet, Sister, then,’ said Alfred, ‘“‘ Marion and I
had better have your true and steadfast qualities serving
us here, and making us both happier and better. I wouldn’t
carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could! ”

“Coach upon the hill-top!’’ exclaimed Britain.

“ Time flies, Alfred,” said the Doctor.

Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the
ground; but this warning being given, her young lover
brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her
into her embrace.

““T have been telling Grace, dear Marion,’”’ he said,
“that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting.
And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the
bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us,
it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can
make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes;
how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we
can return her something of the debt she will have heaped
upon us.”

The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested
on her sister’s neck. She looked into that sister’s eyes, so
calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection,
admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were
blended. She looked into that sister’s face, as if it were the
face of some bright angel. Calm, serene, and cheerful, it
looked back on her and on her lover.

““ And when the time comes, as it must one day,’ said
Alfred,—‘‘ I wonder it has never come yet: but Grace
knows best, for Grace is always right,—when she will want a
friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something
of what she has been to us,—then, Marion, how faithful we
will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our
dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would have

her!”

270 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned
not—even towards him. And still those honest eyes
looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on
her lover.

“« And when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as
we must!) together—close together; talking often of old
times,” said Alfred—‘ these shall be our favourite times
among them—this day most of all; and telling each other
what we thought and felt, and hoped and feared, at parting;
and how we couldn’t bear to say good-bye——”

“Coach coming through the wood,” cried Britain,

“Yes! Iam ready—and how we met again, so happily.
in spite of all; we'll make this day the happiest in all the
year, and keep it as a treble birthday. Shall we, dear?”

“Yes!” interposed the eldest sister, eagerly, and with
a radiant smile. ‘‘ Yes! Alfred, don’t linger. There’s no
time. Say good-bye to Marion. And Heaven be with
you?”

He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released
from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her
eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so
calm, serene and cheerful.

‘Farewell, my boy!” said the Doctor. “ To talk
about any serious correspondence or serious affections, and
engagements, and so forth, in such a—ha ha ha!—you know
what I mean—why that, of course, would be sheer nonsense.
All I can say is, that if you and Marion should continue in the
same foolish minds, I shall not object to have you for a son-
in-law one of these days.”

* Over the bridge! ’’ cried Britain.

“Let it come!” said Alfred, wringing the Doctor's
hand stoully. ‘‘ Think of me sometimes, my old friend and
guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr. Snitchey!
Farewell, Mr. Craggs! ”’

“Coming down the road!” cried Britain.

“A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance’
sake—shake hands, Britain—Marion, dearest heart, good-
bye! Sister Grace! remember! ”

The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in
its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but Marion’s
look and attitude remained unchanged.

The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with the
luggage. The coach drove away. Marion never moved.

PART THE FIRST 271

“He waves his hat to you, my love,” said Grace.
“ Your chosen husband, darling. Look! ”

The younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment,
turned it. Then turning back again, and fully meeting,
for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck,

“Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see
Loe Grace! It breaks my heart.”

PART THE SECOND

SNitcHEY and Craggs had a snug little office on the old
Battle Ground, where they drove a snug little business, and
fought a great many small pitched battles for a great many
contending parties. Though it could hardly be said of
these conflicts that they were running fights — for in
truth they generally proceeded at a snail’s pace—the part
the Firm had in them came so far within that general
denomination, that now they took a shot at this Plaintiff,
and now aimed a chop at that Defendant, now made a
heavy charge at an estate in Chancery, and now had some
light skirmishing among an irregular body of small debtors,
just as the occasion served, and the enemy happened to
present himself. The Gazette was an important and pro-
fitable feature in some of their fields, as well as in fields of
greater renown; and in most of the Actions wherein they
showed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by
the combatants that they had had great difficulty in making
each other out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness
what they were about, in consequence of the vast amount of
smoke by which they were surrounded.

The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood céh-
venient with an open door, down lwo smooth steps in the
market-place: so that any angry farmer inclining towards
hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their special
council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back
room up-stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be
knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled
points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed
leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass
nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen
out; or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering

272 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. There was
a framed print of a great judge in it, every curl in whose
dreadful wig had made a man’s hair stand on end. Bales
of papers filled the dusly closets, shelves, and tables; and
round the wainscot there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and
fireproof, with people’s names painted outside, which
anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment,
obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to make
anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to Snitchey
and Craggs, without comprehending one word of what they
said.

Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in
professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and
Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real con-
fidence in one another; but Mrs. Snitchey, by a dispensation
not uncommon in the affairs of life, was, on principle,
suspicious of Mr. Craggs, and Mrs. Craggs was, on principle,
suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. ‘‘ Your Snitcheys, indeed,”
the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr. Craggs;
using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an
objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not
possessed of a singular number; ‘ I don’t see what you want
with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal
too much to your Snitcheys, J think, and I hope you may
never find my words come true.’? While Mrs. Snitchey
would observe to Mr. Snitchey, of Craggs, ‘‘ that if ever he
was led away by man he was led away by that man; and
that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she
read that purpose in Craggs’s eye.”’ Notwithstanding this,
however, they were all very good friends in general: and
Mrs. Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs maintained a close bond of
alliance against “ the office,’ which they both considered
a Blue chamber, and common enemy, full of dangerous
(because unknown) machinations.

In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made
honey for their several hives. Here sometimes they would
linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-
chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder
(but that was generally at assize time, when much business
had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who
couldn't always be at peace with one another, and go to
law comfortably. Here days, and weeks, and months, and
years, passed over them; their calendar, the gradually

PART THE SECOND 273

diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs,
and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. Here
nearly three years’ flight had thinned the one and swelled
the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat
together in consultation, at night.

Not alone; but with a man of thirty, or about that time
of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face,
but well-made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the
arm-chair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the
other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs.
Snitchey and Craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbour-
ing desk. One of the fire-proof boxes, unpadlocked and
opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon
the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through
the hands of Mr. Snitchey, who brought it to the candle,
document by document, looked at every paper singly, as he
produced it, shook his head, and handed it to Mr. Craggs,
who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down.
Sometimes they would stop, and shaking their heads in
concert, look towards the abstracted client; and the name
on the box being Michael Warden, Esquire, we may conclude
from these premises that the name and the box were both
his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in
a bad way.

““That’s all,” said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last
paper. ‘‘ Really there’s no other resource. No other
resource.”

« All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold,
eh? ”’ said the client, looking up.

“ All,” returned Mr. Snitchey.

“‘ Nothing else to be done, you say? ”

“ Nothing at all.”

The client bit his nails, and pondered again.

“‘ And I am not even personally safe in England?. You
hold to that; do you?”

“In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland,” replied Mr. Snitchey.

“A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no
swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?”
pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and
searching the ground with his eyes.

Mr. Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being
supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a

274 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

legal position. Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was a
partnership view of the subject, also coughed.

“Ruined at thirty! ” said the client. ‘‘ Humph!”

“ Not ruined, Mr. Warden,” returned Snitchey. ‘‘ Not
so bad as that. You have done a good deal towards it, I
must say, but you are not ruined. A little nursing—”

** A little Devil,” said the client.

“Mr. Craggs,” said Snitchey, “‘ will you oblige me with
a pinch of snuff? Thank you, Sir.”

As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose,
with great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his
attention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke into
a smile, and, looking up, said:

You talk of nursing. How long nursing? ”

‘‘ How long nursing?’ repeated Snitchey, dusting the
snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his
mind. ‘‘ For your involved estate, Sir? In good hands?
S. and C.’s, say? Six or seven years.”

“ To starve for six or seven years! ”’ said the client with
a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position.

“To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden,” said
Snitchey, ‘“‘ would be very uncommon indeed. You might
get another estate by showing yourself, the while. But we
don’t think you could do it—speaking for Self and Craggs—
and consequently don’t advise it.”

* What do you advise? ”’

“ Nursing, I say,” repeated Snitchey. ‘‘Some few
years of nursing by Self and Craggs would bring it round.
But to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and you
to keep terms, you must go away, you must live abroad.
As to starvation, we could ensure you some hundreds a year
to starve upon, even in the beginning, I dare say, Mr.
Warden.”

‘“ Hundreds,” said the client. ‘And I have spent
thousands! ”

“That,” retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers
slowly back into the cast-iron box, ‘there is no doubt about.
No doubt a—bout,” he repeated to himself, as he thought-
fully pursued his occupation.

The lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his
dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influence
upon the client’s moody state, and disposed him to be more
free and unreserved. Or perhaps the client knew his man;

PART THE SECOND 275

and had elicited such encouragement as he had received, to
render some purpose he was about to disclose the more
defensible in appearance. Gradually raising his head, he
sat looking at his immovable adviser with a smile, which
presently broke into a laugh.

“ After all,” he said, ‘‘ my iron-headed friend—”

Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. ‘“‘ Self and—
excuse me—Craggs.”’

“TI beg Mr. Craggs’s pardon,” said the client. ‘“ After
all, my iron-headed friends,” he leaned forward in his chair,
and dropped his voice a little, ‘‘ you don’t know half my ruin
vets?

Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs
also stared.

““T am not only deep in debt,” said the client, “ but I
am deep in 24

** Not in love! ”’ cried Snitchey.

“Yes! ’’ said the client, falling back in his chair, and
surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. ‘“ Deep
in love.”

“And not with an heiress, Sir? ” said Snitchey.

“ Not with an heiress.”

*‘ Nor a rich lady? ”

“Nor a rich lady that I know of—except in beauty and
merit.”

“A single lady, I trust?” said Mr. Snitchey, with great
expression.

“* Certainly.”

“Tt’s nol one of Dr. Jeddler’s daughters?” said
Snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and
advancing his face at least a yard.

“Yes! ”’ returned the client.

“Not his younger daughter? ” said Snitchey.

** Yes! ”’ returned the client.

‘Mr. Craggs,”’ said Snitchey, much relieved, “ will you
oblige me with another pinch of snuff? Thank you. Iam
happy to say it don’t signify, Mr. Warden; she’s engaged,
Sir, she’s bespoke. My partner can corroborate me. We
know the fact.” f

““ We know the fact,”’ returned Craggs.

““Why, so do I perhaps,” repeated the client quietly.
“What of that? Are you men of the world, and did you
“never hear of a woman changing her mind? ”

276 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“There certainly have been actions for breach,” said
Mr. Snitchey, ‘‘ brought against both spinsters and widows,
but in the majority of cases——”

“Cases!’’ interposed the client, impatiently. ‘“‘ Don’t
talk to me of cases. The general precedent is in a much
larger volume than any of your law books. Besides, do you
think I have lived six weeks in the Doctor’s house for
nothing? ”

“T think, Sir,” observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely ad-
dressing himself to his partner, ‘ that of all the scrapes Mr.
Warden’s horses have brought him into at one time and
another—and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty
expensive, as none know better than himself and you and I
—the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he talks in this
way, his having been ever left by one of them at the Doctor's
garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar-bone,
and the Lord knows how many bruises. We didn’t think
so much of it, at the time when we knew he was going on
well under the Doctor’s hands and roof; but it looks bad
now, Sir. Bad! It looks very bad. Dr. Jeddler too—our
client, Mr. Craggs.”’

“Mr. Alfred Heathfield too—a sort of client, Mr.
Snitchey,”’ said Craggs.

‘** Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client,’ said the
careless visitor, ‘‘ and no bad one either: having played the
fool for ten or twelve years. However Mr. Michael Warden
has sown his wild oats now; there’s their crop, in that box;
and means to repent and be wise, And in proof of it, Mr.
Michael Warden means, if he can, to marry Marion, the
Doctor's lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him.”

“ Really, Mr. Craggs,’’ Snitchey began.

“ Really Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both,”
said the client, interrupting him; “ you know your duty to
your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it is
no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am
obliged to confide to you! I am not going to carry the
young lady off without her own consent. There’s nothing
illegal in it. I mever was Mr. Heathfield’s bosom friend.
I violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and
I mean to win where he would win, if I can.”

“He can't, Mr. Craggs,” said Snitchey, evidently

anxious and discomfited. ‘‘ He can’t do it, Sir. She dotes
on Mr. Alfred.”

PART THE SECOND 277

“Does she? ” returned the client.

“Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, Sir,” persisted Snitchey. ;

“‘T didn’t live six weeks, some few months ago, in the
Doctor’s house for nothing; and I doubted that soon,”
observed the client. ‘‘ She would have doted on him, if her
sister could have brought it about; but I watched them.
Marion avoided his name, avoided the subject; shrunk
from the least allusion to it, with evident distress.”

“Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should
she, Sir? ” inquired Snitchey.

“T don’t know why she should, though there are many
likely reasons,” said the client, smiling at the attention and
perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey’s shining eye and at
his cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and
making himself informed upon the subject; ‘ but I know
she does. She was very young when she made the engage-
ment—if it may be called one, I am not even sure of that
—and has repented of it, perhaps. Perhaps—it seems a
foppish thing to say, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in
that light—she may have fallen in love with me, as I have
fallen in love with her.”

“He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you re-
member, Mr. Craggs,’”’ said Snitchey, with a disconcerted
laugh; “ knew her almost from a baby.”

“Which makes it the more probable that she may
be tired of his idea,’’ calmly pursued the client, ‘‘ and not
indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another
lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse)
under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavourable
reputation—with a country girl—of having lived thought-
lessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody;
and who, for his youth and figure, and so forth—this may
seem foppish again, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in
that light—might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr.
Alfred himself.”

_ There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly;
and Mr. Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was
something naturally graceful and pleasant in the very
carelessness of his air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely
face and well-knit figure, that they might be greatly better
if he chose: and thtft, once roused and made earnest
(but he never had been earnest yet), he could be full of fire
and purpose. ‘ A dangerous sort of libertine,” thought the

278 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

shrewd lawyer, ‘“‘ to seem to catch the spark he wants from a
young lady’s eyes.”

“Now, observe, Snitchey,” he continued, rising and
taking him by the button, “ and Craggs,” taking him by the
button also, and placing one partner on either side of him,
so that neither might evade him, “ I don’t ask you for any
advice. You are right to keep quite aloof from all parties
in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like
you could interfere, on any side. I am briefly going to
review in half-a-dozen words, my position and intention, and
then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money
matters, that you can: seeing, that, if I run away with the
Doctor’s beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become
another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the
moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I
shall soon make all that up in an altered life.”

‘“‘ T think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs? ”
said Snitchey, looking at him across the client.

‘* 7 think not,” said Craggs.—Both listening attentively.

“Well! You needn’t hear it,” replied their client.
““Tll mention it, however. I don’t mean to ask the Doctor’s
consent, because he wouldn’t give it me. But I mean
to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides there
being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) I hope
to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see—I know—
she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the
return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true,
it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so
far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I
lead the life of a flying-fish; skulk about in the dark, am
shul out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds:
but that house, and those grounds, and many an acre
besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and
say; and Marion will probably be richer—on your showing,
who are never sanguine—ten years hence as my wife, than as
the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads
(remember that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is
not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It is a fair case
throughout. My right is as good as his, if she decide in my
favour; and I will try my right by her alone. You will like
to know no more after this, and I will tell you no more.

Now you know my purpose, and wants. When must I
leave here? ”’

ns

PART THE SECOND 279

“In a week,” said Snitchey. “ Mr. Craggs?—”

“ In something less, I should say,’”’ responded Craggs.

“In a month,” said the client, after attentively watching
the two faces. “This day month. To-day is Thursday.
Succeed or fail, on this day month I go.”

“ It’s too long a delay,” said Snitchey; ‘‘ much too long.
But let it be so. I thought he’d have stipulated for three,”
he murmured to himself. “ Are you going? Good night,
Sir.”

“ Good night! ” returned the client, shaking hands with
the Firm. “ You'll live to see me making a good use of
riches yet. Henceforth, the star of my destiny is,
Marion! ”

“Take care of the stairs, Sir,’ replied Snitchey; “ for
she don’t shine there. Good night! ”

* Good night! ”

So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of
office-candles, watching him down; and when he had gone
away, stood looking at each other.

“What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?”’ said
Snitchey.

Mr. Craggs shook his head.

“It was our opinion, on the day when that release was
executed, that there was something curious in the parting
of that pair, I recollect,” said Snitchey.

* It was,” said Mr. Craggs.

“Perhaps he deceives himself altogether,” pursued
Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it
away; “or if he don’t, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy
is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty
face was very true. I thought,” said Mr. Snitchey, putting
on his great-coat (for the weather was very cold), drawing
on his gloves, and snuffing out one candle, “ that I had even
seen her character becoming stronger and more resolved of
late. More like her sister’s.”’

“‘Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion,’ returned
Craggs.

“Yd really give a trifle to-night,’ observed Mr.
Snitchey, who was a good-natured man, “ if I could believe
that Mr. Warden was reckoning without his host; but light-
headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, he knows
something of the world and its people, (he ought to for he has
bought what he does know, dear enough); and I can’t

>

280 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

quite think that. We had better not interfere: we can do
nothing, Mr. Craggs, but keep quiet.”

“‘ Nothing,” returned Craggs.

“ Our friend the Doctor makes light of such things,”
said Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. ‘I hope he mayn’t
stand in need of his philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of
the battle of life,’ he shook his head again, “‘ I hope he
mayn’t be cut down early in the day. Have you got your
hat, Mr. Craggs? Iam going to put the other candle out.”

Mr. Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. Snitchey
suited the action to the word, and they groped their way out
of the council-chamber: now as dark as the subject, or the
law in general. ;

My story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that
same night, the sisters and the hale old Doctor sat by a
cheerful fireside. Grace was working at her needle. Marion
read aloud from a book before her. The Doctor, in his
dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread out upon the
warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, and listened to the
book, and looked upon his daughters.

They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better
faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred.
Something of the difference between them had been softened
down in three years’ time; and enthroned upon the clear
brow of the younger sister, looking through her eyes, and
thrilling in her voice, was the same earnest nature that her
own motherless youth had ripened in the elder sister long
ago. But she still appeared at once the lovelier and weaker
of the two; still seemed to rest her head upon her sister’s
breast, and put her trust in her, and look into her eyes for
counsel and reliance. Those loving eyes, so calm, serene,
and cheerful, as of old.

““ And being in her own home,’ ”’ read Marion, from the
book; ‘‘‘ her home made exquisitely dear by these re-
membrances, she now began to know that the great trial of
her heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed.
Oh Home, our comforter and friend when others fall away,
to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the
grave ey

““ Marion, my love! ”’ said Grace.

“Why, Puss!’’ exclaimed her father, “ what’s the
matter? ”

PART THE SECOND 281

She put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched
towards her, and read on; her voice still faltering and
trembling, though she made an effort to command it when
thus interrupted.

“*«To part with whom, at any step between the cradle
and the grave, is always sorrowful. Oh Home, so true to
us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that turn
away from thee, and do not haunt their erring footsteps too
reproachfully! Let no kind Jooks, no well-remembered
smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let no ray of
affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, cordiality,
shine from thy white head. Let no old loving word or tone
rise up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst
look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent!’ ”’

“Dear Marion, read no more to-night,” said Grace—for
she was weeping.

“T cannot,” she replied, and closed the book. ‘‘ The
words seem all on fire! ’’

The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he
patted her on the head.

“What! overcome by a story-book!” said Doctor
Jeddler. ‘‘ Print and paper! Well, well, it’s all one. It’s
as rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as of
anything else. But dry your eyes, love, dry your eyes. I
dare say the heroine has got home again long ago, and made
it up all round—and if she hasn’t, a real home is only four
walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags and ink. What’s the
matter now? ”

‘It’s only me, Mister,” said Clemency, putting in her
head at the door.

“« And what’s the matter with you ?” said the Doctor.

“Oh, bless you, nothing an’t the matter with me,” re-
turned Clemency—and truly too, to judge from her well-
soaped face, in which there gleamed as usual the very soul of
good humour, which, ungainly as she was, made her quite
engaging. Abrasions on the elbows are not generally under-
stood, it is true, to range within that class of personal
charms called beauty-spots. But it is better, going through
the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage,
than the temper: and Clemency’s was sound and whole as
any beauty’s in the land.

“Nothing an’t the matter with me,” said Clemency,
entering, ‘‘ but—come a little closer, Mister.”

282 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this
invitation.

“You said I wasn’t to give you one before them, you
know,” said Clemency.

A novice in the family might have supposed, from her
extraordinary ogling as she said it, as well as from a singular
rapture or ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, as if she were
embracing herself, that ‘‘ one,’ in its most favourable in-
terpretation, meant a chaste salute. Indeed the Doctor
himself seemed alarmed, for the moment; but quickly re-
gained his composure, as Clemency, having had recourse to
both her pockets—beginning with the right one, going away
to the wrong one, and afterwards coming back to the right
one again—produced a letter from the Post-office.

“ Britain was riding by on a errand,” she chuckled,
handing it to the Doctor, ‘‘ an see the Mail come in, and
waited forit. There’s A. H.in the corner. Mr. Alfred’s on
his journey home, I bet. We shall have a wedding in the
house—there was two spoons in my saucer this morning.
Oh Luck, how slow he opens it!”

All this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradually
rising higher and higher on tiptoe, in her impatience to hear
the news, and making a corkscrew of her apron, and a bottle
of her mouth. At last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and
seeing the Doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter,
she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast
her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and
inability to bear it any longer.

‘Here! Girls!” eried the Doctor. ‘I can’t help it:
I never could keep a secret in my life. There are not many
secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a—well! never
mind that. Alfred’s coming home, my dears, directly.”

* Directly! ’’ exclaimed Marion.

“What! The story-book is soon forgotten!” said the
Doctor, pinching her cheek. ‘“ I thought the news would
dry those tears. Yes. ‘ Let it be a surprise,’ he says, here.
But I can’t let it be a surprise. He must have a welcome.”

“ Directly! ’’ repeated Marion.

“Why, perhaps not what your impatience calls
‘directly,’ ’’ returned the Doctor; ‘but pretty soon too.
Let us see. Let us see. To-day is Thursday, is it not?
Then he promises to be here, this day month.”

“This day month!’ repeated Marion, softly.

© bees

PART THE SECOND 283

“A gay day and a holiday for us,” said the cheerful
voice of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation.
“ Long looked forward to, dearest, and come at last.”

She answered with a smile; a mournful smile; but full of
sisterly affection: and as she looked in her sister’s face,
and listened to the quiet music of her voice, picturing the
happiness of this return, her own face glowed with hope and
Joy.

And with a something else; a something shining more
and more through all the rest of its expression: for which
I have no name. It was not exultation, triumph, proud
enthusiasm. They are not so calmly shown. It was not
love and gratitude alone, though love and gratitude were part
of it. It emanated from no sordid thought, for sordid
thoughts do not light up the brow, and hover on the lips,
and move the spirit, like a fluttered light, until the sym-
pathetic figure trembles.

Doctor Jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy—
which he was continually contradicting and denying in
practice, but more famous philosophers have done that—
could not help having as much interest in the return of his
old ward and pupil, as if it had been a serious event. So
he sat himself down in his easy chair again, stretched out
his slippered feet once more upon the rug, read the letter
over and over a great many times, and talked it over more
times still.

“Ah! The day was,” said the Doctor, looking at the
fire, “‘ when you and he, Grace, used to trot about arm-in-
arm, in his holiday time, like a couple of walking dolls.
You remember? ”

“© T remember,” she answered, with her pleasant laugh,
and plying her needle busily. ;

“This day month, indeed! ’”’ mused the Doctor, ‘ That
hardly seems a twelvemonth ago. And where was my
little Marion then? ”

“Never far from her sister,’? said Marion, cheerily,
“ however little. Grace was everything to me, even when
she was a young child herself.”

“True, Puss, true,” returned the Doctor. “She was
a staid little woman, was Grace, and a wise housekeeper,
and a busy, quiet, pleasant body; bearing with our humours
and anticipating our wishes, and always ready to forget her
own, even in those times. I never knew you positive or

284 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

obstinate, Grace, my darling, even then, on any subject
but one.”

“ Tam afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since,”
laughed Grace, still busy at her work. ‘‘ What was that
one, father? ”

“ Alfred, of course,”’ said the Doctor. ‘ Nothing would
serve you but you must be called Alfred’s wife; so we
called you Alfred’s wife; and you liked it better, I believe
(odd as it seems now), than being called a Duchess, if we
could have made you one.”

‘* Indeed! ’’ said Grace, placidly.

“ Why, don’t you remember? ”’ inquired the Doctor.

“©T think I remember something of it,’’ she returned,
‘“‘butnotmuch. It’ssolongago.’’ Andasshe sat at work,
she hummed the burden of an old song, which the Doctor
liked.

** Alfred will find a real wife soon,’’ she said, breaking
off; ‘and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us.
My three years’ trust is nearly at an end, Marion. It has
been a very easy one. I shall tell Alfred, when I give you
back to him, that you have loved him dearly all the time,
and that he has never once needed my good services. May
I tell him so, love? ”

“Tell him, dear Grace,’’ replied Marion, “‘ that there
never was a trust so generously, nobly, steadfastly discharged;
and that I have loved you, all the time, dearer and dearer
every day; and oh! how dearly now! ”

** Nay,” said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace,
“IT can searcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts to
Alfred’s imagination. It will be liberal enough, dear
Marion; like your own.”

With that she resumed the work she had for a moment
laid down, when her sister spoke so fervently; and with it
the old song the Doctor liked to hear. And the Doctor,
still reposing in his easy chair, with his slippered feet
stretched out before him on the rug, listened to the tune,
and beat time on his knee with Alfred’s letter, and looked
at his two daughters, and thought that among the many
trifles of the trifling world, these trifles were agreeable
enough.

Clemency Neweome in the mean time, having accom-
plished her mission and lingered in the room until she had
made herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen,

PART THE SECOND 285

where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, was regaling after
supper, surrounded by such a plentiful collection of bright
pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished dinner-covers,
gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her industrious habits,
arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he sat as in the
centre of a hall of mirrors. The majority did not give forth
very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were they
by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made
him very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably
well-looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their
several manners of reflecting: which were as various, in
respect of one fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But
they all agreed that in the midst of them sat, quite at his
ease, an individual with a pipe in his mouth, and a jug of
beer at his elbow, who nodded condescendingly to Clemency,
when she stationed herself at the same table.

“ Well, Clemmy,” said Britain, ‘‘ how are you by this
time, and what’s the news? ”

Clemency told him the news, which he received very
graciously. A gracious change had come over Benjamin
from head to foot. He was much broader, much redder,
much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. It
seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and
was now untwisted and smoothed out.

“There'll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I
suppose,” he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. ‘‘ More
witnessing for you and me, perhaps, Clemmy! ”

““Lor! ” replied his fair companion, with her favourite
twist of her favourite joints. “I wish it was me,
Britain.”

““ Wish what was you?”

“A going to be married,”’ said Clemency.

Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed
heartily. “ Yes! you’re a likely subject for that!” he
said. Poor Clem!” Clemency for her part laughed as
heartily as he, and seemed as much amused by the idea.
“Yes,” she assented, “ I’m a likely subject for that; an’t
|g a

“© You'll never be married, you know,” said Mr. Britain,
resuming his pipe.

“Don’t you think I ever shall though? ”’ said Clemency,
in perfect good faith.

Mr. Britain shook his head. “ Not a chance of it!”

286 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“Only think!” said Clemency. ‘“‘ Well!—I suppose
you mean to, Britain, one of these days, don’t you? ”’

A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous,
required consideration. After blowing out a great cloud
of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this side
and now on that, as if it were actually the question, and he
were surveying it in various aspects, Mr. Britain replied
that he wasn’t altogether clear about it, but—ye-es—he
thought he might come to that at last.

‘« T wish her joy, whoever she may be! ”’ cried Clemency.

“Oh she'll have that,’ said Benjamin; “safe
enough.”

“But she wouldn’t have led quite such a joyful life as
she will lead, and wouldn’t have had quite such a sociable
sort of husband as she will have,” said Clemency, spreading
herself half over the table, and staring r@trospectively at the
candle, ‘‘if it hadn’t been for—not that I went to do it,
for it was accidental, I am sure—if it hadn’t been for me;
now would she, Britain?”

“ Certainly not,” returned Mr. Britain, by this time in
that high state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man can
open his mouth but a very little way for speaking purposes;
and sitting luxuriously immovable in his chair, can afford
to turn only his eyes towards a companion, and that very
passively and gravely. ‘‘ Oh! I’m greatly beholden to you,
you know, Clem.”

“Lor, how nice that is to think of!’’ said Clemency.

At the same time, bringing her thoughts as well as her
sight to bear upon the candle-grease, and becoming abruptly
reminiscent of its healing qualities as a balsam, she anointed
her left elbow with a plentiful application of that remedy.

“You see I’ve made a good many investigations of one
sort and another in my time,’”’ pursued Mr. Britain, with
the profundity of a sage; ‘having been always of an
inquiring turn of mind; and I’ve read a good many books
about the general Rights of things and Wrongs of things,
for I went into the literary line myself, when I began life.”

“ Did you though?” cried the admiring Clemency.

“ Yes,” said Mr, Britain; “ I was hid for the best part
of two years behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if anybody
pocketed a volume; and after that I was light porter to a
stay and mantua maker, in which capacity I was employed
to carry about, in oilskin baskets, nothing but deceptions—

PART THE SECOND 287

which soured my spirits and disturbed my confidence in
human nature; and after that, I heard a world of discussions
in this house, which soured my spirits fresh; and my opinion
after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of the
same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there’s nothing
like a nutmeg-grater.”

Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped
her by anticipating it.

“ Com-bined,” he added gravely, ‘‘ with a thimble.”

“Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh! ” observed
Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at this
avowal, and patting her elbows. ‘Such a short cut, an’t
rer?

“Tm not sure,” said Mr. Britain, ‘‘ that it’s what would
be considered good philosophy. I’ve my doubts about that:
but it wears well, and saves a quantity of snarling, which
the genuine article don’t always.”

“See how you used to go on once, yourself, you know! ”
said Clemency.

“ Ah!” said Mr. Britain. ‘‘ But the most extraordinary
thing, Clemmy, is that I should live to be brought round,
through you. That’s the strange part of it. Through you!
Why, I suppose you haven’t so much as half an idea in your
head.”

Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it,
and laughed, and hugged herself, and said, ‘‘ No, she didn’t
suppose she had.”

“T’m pretty sure of it,’ said Mr. Britain.

“Oh! JI dare say you're right,’’ said Clemency. “I
don’t pretend to none. I don’t want any.”

Benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till the
tears ran down his face. ‘‘ What a natural you are,
Clemmy! ”’ he said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish
of the joke, and wiping his eyes. Clemency, without the
smallest inclination to dispute it, did the like, and laughed
as heartily as he.

“ But I can’t help liking you,” said Mr. Britain; “ you’re
a regular good creature in your way; so shake hands,
Clem. Whatever happens, I’ll always take notice of you,
and be a friend to you.”

“Will you?” returned Clemency. ‘ Well! that’s very

good of you.” iol
“ Yes, yes,’”’ said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to knock

288 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

the ashes out of; “I'll stand by you. Hark! That’s a
curious noise!”

‘‘ Noise!’ repeated Clemency.

“A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the
wall, it sounded like,” said Britain. ‘‘ Are they all abed
upstairs? ”

‘* Yes, all abed by this time,” she replied.

*Didn’t you hear anything? ”

“Maz

They both listened, but heard nothing.

*« T tell you what,” said Benjamin, taking down a lantern.
*‘ T’ll have a look around before I go to bed myself, for
satisfaction’s sake. Undo the door while I light this,
Clemmy.”

Clemency complied briskly; but observed as she did so,
that he would only have his walk for his pains, that it was all
his fancy, and so forth. Mr. Britain said ‘‘ very likely; ”’
but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and
casting the light of the lantern far and near in all directions.

* Tt’s as quiet as a churchyard,” said Clemency, looking
after him; ‘‘ and almost as ghostly too!”

Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a
light figure stole into her view, ‘‘ What’s that!”

“Hush!” said Marion, in an agitated whisper. “ You
have always loved me, have you not?”

* Loved you, child! You may be sure I have.”

“Tam sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There
is no one else just now, in whom I can trust.’

“Yes,”’ said Clemency, with all her heart.

“There is some one out there,” pointing to the door,
“whom I must see, and speak with, to-night. Michael
Warden, for God’s sake retire! Not now! ”

Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following
the direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark figure
standing in the doorway.

“In another moment you may be discovered,” said
Marion. ‘“ Not now! Wait, if you can, in some conceal-
ment. I will come, presently.”

He waved his hand to her, and was gone.

“Don’t go to bed. Wait here for me!’’ said Marion,
hurriedly, ‘‘ I have been seeking to speak to you for an
hour past. Oh, be true to me!”

Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it

PART THE SECOND | 289

with both her own to her breast—an action more expressive,
in its passion of entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in
words, — Marion withdrew; as the light of the returning
lantern flashed into the room.

“All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy,
I suppose,” said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the
door. “ One of the effects of having a lively imagination.
Halloa! Why, what’s the matter? ”

Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her
surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and
trembling from head to foot.

“Matter! ”’ she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows,
nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. ‘ That’s
good in you, Britain, thatis! After going and frightening
one out of one’s life with noises, and lanterns, and I don’t
know what all. Matter! Oh, yes.”

“Tf you're frightened out of your life by a lantern,
Clemmy,” said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and
hanging it up again, “ that apparition’s very soon got rid
of. But you're as bold as brass in general,” he said, stopping
to observe her; ‘“‘ and were, after the noise and the lantern
too. What have you taken into your head? Not an idea,
eh? ”

But as Clemency bade him good night very much after
her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show
of going to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, after
giving utterance to the original remark that it was impossible
to account for a woman’s whims, bade her good night in
return, and taking up his candle strolled drowsily away to
bed.

When all was quiet, Marion returned.

“‘Open the door,’ she said; ‘‘ and stand there close
beside me, while I speak to him, outside.”

Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and
settled purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. She
softly unbarred the door: but before turning the key,
looked round on the young creature waiting to issue forth
when she should open it.

The face was not averted or cast down; but looking full
upon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. Some simple
sense of the slightness of the barrier that interposed itself
between the happy home and honoured love of the fair girl,
and what might be the desolation of that home, and ship-

12—K

290 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

wreck of its dearest treasure, smote so keenly on the tender
heart of Clemency, and so filled it to overflowing with sorrow
and compassion, that, bursting into tears, she threw her
arms round Marion’s neck. .

“It’s little that I know, my dear,” cried Clemency,
‘very little; but I know that this should not be. Think
of what you do!”

“ T have thought of it many times,” said Marion, gently.

“Once more,” urged Clemency. “‘ Till to-morrow.”

Marion shook her head.

“For Mr. Alfred’s sake,” said Clemency, with homely
earnestness. ‘‘ Him that you used to love so dearly, once! ”’

She hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, repeating
“Once!” as if it rent her heart.

“Let me go out,’’ said Clemency, soothing her. “ I'll
tell him what you like. Don’t cross the doorstep to-night.
I’m sure no good will come of it. Oh, it was an unhappy
day when Mr. Warden was ever brought here! Think of
your good father, darling: of your sister.”

“ T have,” said Marion, hastily raising her head. ‘‘ You
don’t know what Ido. You don’t know what Ido. I must
speak to him. You are the best and truest friend in all the
world for what you have said to me, but I must take this
step. Will you go with me, Clemency,” she kissed her on
her friendly face, “ or shall I go alone?”

Sorrowing and wondering. Clemency turned the key,
and opened the door. Into the dark and doubtful night
that lay beyond the threshold, Marion passed quickly,
holding by her hand.

In the dark night he joined her, and they spoke together
earnestly and long: and the hand that held so fast by
Clemency’s, now trembled, now turned deadly cold, now
clasped and closed on hers, in the strong feeling of the
speech it emphasised unconsciously. When they returned,
he’ followed to the door; and pausing there a moment,
seized the other hand, and pressed it to his lips. Then
stealthily withdrew.

The door was barred and locked again, and once again
she stood beneath her father’s roof. Not bowed down by
the secret that she brought there, though so young; but
with that same expression on her face, for which I had no
name before, and shining through her tears.

Again she thanked and thanked her humble friend,

PART THE SECOND 291

and trusted to her, as she said, with confidence, implicitly.
Her chamber safely reached, she fell upon her knees; and
with her secret weighing on her heart could pray!

Could rise up from her prayers, so tranquil and serene,
and bending over her fond sister in her slumber, looked
upon her face and smile: though sadly: murmuring as she
kissed her forehead, how that Grace had been a mother to
her ever, and she loved her as a child.

Could draw the passive arm about her neck when lying
down to rest—it seemed to cling there, of its own will, pro-
tectingly and tenderly even in sleep—and breathe upon the
parted lips, God bless her!

Could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself; but for one
dream, in which she cried out, in her innocent and touching
voice, that she was quite alone, and they had all forgotten
her.

A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace.
The month appointed to elapse between that night
and the return, was quick of foot, and went by, like a
vapour.

The day arrived. A raging winter day, that shook the
old house, sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. A day
to make home doubly home. To give the chimney corner
new delights. To shed a ruddier glow upon the faces
gathered round the hearth; and draw each fireside group
into a closer and more social league, against the roaring
elements without. Such a wild winter day as best prepares
the way for shut-out night; for curtained rooms, and cheer-
ful looks; for music, laughter, dancing, light, and jovial
entertainment!

All these the Doctor had in store to welcome Alfred back.
They knew that he could not arrive till night; and they
would make the night air ring, he said, as he approached.
All his old friends should congregate about him. He
should not miss a face that he had known and liked. No!
They should every one be there!

So, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, and
tables spread, and floors prepared for active feet, and
bountiful provision made, of every hospitable kind. Be-
cause it was the Christmas season, and his eyes were all
unused to English holly, and its sturdy green, the dancing
room was garlanded and hung with it; and the red berries

292 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

gleamed an English welcome to him, peeping from among
the leaves.

It was a busy day for all of them: a busier day for none
of them than Grace, who noiselessly presided everywhere,
and was the cheerful mind of all the preparations. Many a
time that day (as well as many a time within the fleeting
month preceding it), did Clemency glance anxiously, and
almost fearfully, at Marion. She saw her paler, perhaps,
than usual; but there was a sweet composure on her face
that made it lovelier than ever.

At night when she was dressed, and wore upon her head
a wreath that Grace had proudly twined about it—its
mimic flowers were Alfred’s favourites, as Grace remem-
bered when she chose them—that old expression, pensive,
almost sorrowful, and yet so spiritual, high, and stirring,
sat again upon her brow, enhanced a hundred fold.

“The next wreath I adjust on this fair head, will be a
marriage wreath,” said Grace; ‘‘ or I am no true prophet,
dear.”

Her sister smiled, and held her in her arms.

‘*“A moment, Grace. Don’t leave me yet. Are you
sure that I want nothing more? ”

Her care was not for that. It was her sister’s face she
thought of, and her eyes were fixed upon it, tenderly.

“My art,” said Grace, “‘can go no farther, dear girl;
nor your beauty. I never saw you look so beautiful as
now.”

*“ T never was so happy,” she returned.

* Aye, but there is greater happiness in store. In such
another home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now,”
said Grace, “* Alfred and his young wife will soon be living.”

She smiled again. ‘* It is a happy home, Grace, in your
fancy. Ican see it in your eyes. I know it will be happy,
dear. How glad I am to know it.”

“Well,” cried the Doctor, bustling in. “ Here we are,
all ready for Alfred, eh? He can’t be here until pretty late
an hour or so before midnight—so there'll be plenty of
time for making merry before he comes. He'll not find us
with ice unbroken. Pile up the fire here, Britain! Let it
shine upon the holly till it winks again. It’s a world of
nonsense, Puss; true lovers and all the rest of it—all non-
sense; but we'll be nonsensical with the rest of ’em, and give
our true lover a mad welcome. Upon my word!” said the

PART THE SECOND 293

old Doctor, looking at his daughters proudly, “ I’m not
clear to-night, among other absurdities, but that I’m the
father of two handsome girls.”

“ All that one of them has ever done, or may do—may
do, dearest father—to cause you pain or grief, forgive her,”
said Marion: “ forgive her now, when her heart is full. Say
that you forgive her. That you will forgive her. That
she shall always share your love, and. ” and the rest was
not said, for her face was hidden on the old man’s shoulder.

“Tut, tut, tut,’’ said the Doctor, gently. ‘“ Forgive!
What have I to forgive? Heydey, if our true lovers come
back to flurry us like this, we must hold ’em at a distance;
we must send expresses out to stop ’em short upon the road,
and bring ’em on a mile or two a day, until we’re. properly
prepared to meet ’em. Kiss me, Puss. Forgive! Why,
what a silly child you are. If you had vexed and crossed
me fifty times a day, instead of not at all, I’d forgive you
everything, but such a supplication. Kiss me again, Puss.
There! Prospective and retrospective—a clear score be-
tween us. Pile up the fire here! Would you freeze the
people on this bleak December night! Let us be light,
and warm, and merry, or I’ll not forgive some of you! ”

So gaily the old Doctor carried it! And the fire was
piled up, and the lights were bright, and company arrived,
and a murmuring of lively tongues began, and already there
was a pleasant air of cheerful excitement stirring through
all the house.

More and more company came flocking in. Bright
eyes sparkled upon Marion; smiling lips gave her joy of his
return; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped she
mightn’t be too youthful and inconstant for the quiet round
of home; impetuous fathers fell into disgrace, for too much
exaltation of her beauty; daughters envied her; sons
envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the
occasion; all were interested, animated, and expectant.

Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm-in-arm, but Mrs. Snitchey
came alone. ‘‘ Why, what’s become of him?” inquired
the Doctor.

The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey’s
turban, trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive
again, when she said that doubtless Mr. Craggs knew. She
was never told.

“That nasty office,’ said Mrs. Craggs.

294 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“T wish it was burnt down,”’ said Mrs. Snitchey.

“ He’s—he’s—there’s a little matter of business that
keeps my partner rather late,” said Mr. Craggs, looking
uneasily about him.

“Oh—h! Business. Don’t tell me!” said Mrs.
Snitchey.

“* We know what business means,” said Mrs. Craggs.

But their not knowing what it meant was perhaps the
reason why Mrs. Snitchey’s Bird of Paradise feather quivered
so portentously, and all the pendant bits on Mrs. Cragg’s
ear-rings shook like little bells.

“ T wonder you could come away, Mr. Craggs,”’ said his
wife.

“Mrs. Craggs is fortunate, I’m sure!” said Mrs.
Snitchey.

“That office so engrosses ’em,’’ said Mrs. Craggs.

“* A person with an office has no business to be married
at all,’’ said Mrs. Snitchey.

Then Mrs. Snitchey said, within herself, that that
look of hers had pierced to Craggs’s soul, and he knew it;
and Mrs. Craggs observed, to Craggs, that “ his Snitcheys”’
were deceiving him behind his back, and he would find it out
when it was too late.

Still, Mr. Craggs, without much heeding these remarks,
looked uneasily about him until his eye rested on Grace, to
whom he immediately presented himself.

“Good evening, Ma’am,” said Craggs. ‘“ You look
charmingly. Your—Miss—your sister, Miss Marion, is
she a

“Oh she’s quite well, Mr. Craggs.”’

““ Yes—-I—is she here? ’’ asked Craggs.

“Here! Don’t you see her yonder? Going to dance? ”
said Grace.

Mr. Craggs put on his spectacles to see the better;
looked at her through them, for some time; coughed; and
put them, with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath again,
and in his pocket.

Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced.
The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as
though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship.
Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. Some-
times it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old
room; it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch,

PART THE SECOND 295

upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes it
sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves
by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold
winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes
its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds;
and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet,
with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in
its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the
broad old chimney.

Another dance was near its close, when Mr. Snitchey
touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm.

Mr. Craggs started, as if his familiar had been a spectre.

“Is he gone? ” he asked.

“Hush! He has been with me,” said Snitchey, “ for
three hours and more. He went over everything. He
looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very
particular indeed. He— MHumph!”

The dance was finished. Marion passed close before him,
as he spoke. She did not observe him, or his partner; but
looked over her shoulder towards her sister in the distance,
as she slowly made her way into the crowd, and passed out of
their view.

“You see! All safe and well,” said Mr. Craggs. ‘‘ He
didn’t recur to that subject, I suppose? ”

“Not a word.”

“ And is he really gone? Is he safe away? ”

“He keeps to his word. He drops down the river with
the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea
on this dark night—a dare-devil he is—before the wind.
There’s no such lonely road anywhere else. That’s one
thing. The tide flows, he says, an hour before midnight
about this time. I’m glad it’s over.” Mr. Snitchey wiped
his forehead, which looked hot and anxious.

“What do you think,” said Mr. Craggs, “‘ about

“Hush! ” replied his cautious partner, looking straight
before him. ‘‘ I understand you, don’t mention names,
and don’t let us seem to be talking secrets. I don’t know
what to think; and to tell you the truth, I don’t care now.
It’s a great relief. His self-love deceived him, I suppose.
Perhaps the young lady coquetted a little. The evidence
would seem to point that way. Alfred not arrived? ”

“Not yet,” said Mr. Craggs. ‘‘ Expected every minute.”

“Good.’”’? Mr.~ Snitchey wiped his forehead again.

”

296 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“ It’s a great relief. I haven’t been so nervous since we've
been in partnership. I intend to spend the evening now,
Mr. Craggs.” :

Mrs. Craggs and Mrs. Snitchey joined them as he an-
nounced this intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a
state of extreme vibration; and the little bells were ringing
quite audibly.

“Tt has been the theme of general comment, Mr.
Snitchey,” said Mrs. Snitchey. “I hope the office is
satisfied.”

** Satisfied with what, my dear? ” asked Mr. Snitchey.

‘‘ With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule
and remark,” returned his wife. ‘* That is quite in the way
of the office, that is.”

“TI really, myself,’ said Mrs. Craggs, “ have been so
long accustomed to connect the office with everything
opposed to domesticity, that I am glad to know it as the
avowed enemy of my peace. There is something honest in
that, at all events.”

“My dear,’ urged Mr. Craggs, “‘ your good opinion is
invaluable, but J never avowed that the office was the enemy
of your peace.”

“No,” said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the
little bells. ‘‘ Not you, indeed. You wouldn’t be worthy
of the office, if you had the candour to.”

“ As to my having been away to-night, my dear,”’ said
Mr. Snitchey, giving her his arm, “* the deprivation has been
mine, I’m sure; but, as Mr. Craggs knows <s

Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching
her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that
man. ‘To do her the favour to look at him.

“At which man, my dear? ” said Mr. Snitchey.

“Your chosen companion; J’m no companion to you,
Mr. Snitchey.”

“Yes, yes, you are, my dear,’’ he interposed.

“No, no, ’'m not,” said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic
smile. ** [know my station. Will you look at your chosen
companion, Mr. Snitchey; at your referee; at the keeper of
your secrets; at the man you trust; at your other self, in
short.”

The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned
Mr. Snitchey to look in that direction.

‘If you can look that man in the eye this night,” said

PART THE SECOND 297

Mrs. Snitchey, “and not know that you are deluded,
practised upon: made the victim of his arts, and bent down
prostrate to his will, by some unaccountable fascination
which it is impossible to explain, and against which no
warning of mine is of the least avail: all I can say is—I
pity you! ”

At the very same moment Mrs. Craggs was oracular on the
cross subject. Was it possible she said, that Craggs could so
blind himself to his Snitcheys, as not to feel his true position.
Did he mean to say that he had seen his Snitcheys come into
that room, and didn’t plainly see that there was reserva-
tion, cunning, treachery, in theman? Would he tell her that
his very action, when he wiped his forehead and looked so
stealthily about him, didn’t show that there was something
weighing on the conscience of his precious Snitcheys (if he
had a conscience), that wouldn’t bear the light. Did
anybody but the Snitcheys come to festive entertainments
like a burglar?—which, by the way, was hardly a clear
illustration of the case, as he had walked in very mildly
at the door. And would he still assert to her at noon-day
(it being nearly midnight), that his Snitcheys were to be
justified through thick and thin, against all facts, and
reason, and experience?

Neither Snitchey nor Craggs openly attempted to stem
the current which had thus set in, but both were content to
be carried gently along it, until its force abated; which
happened at about the same time as a general movement for
a country dance; when Mr. Snitchey proposed himself as a
partner to Mrs. Craggs, and Mr. Craggs gallantly offered
himself to Mrs. Snitchey; and after some such slight evasions
as “why don’t you ask somebody else? ”’ and “‘ you'll be
glad, I know, if I decline,” and “‘ I wonder you can dance out
of the office ” (but this jocosely now), each lady graciously
accepted, and took her place.

It was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, and
to pair off, in like manner, at dinners and suppers; for they
were excellent friends, and on a footing of easy familiarity.
Perhaps the false Craggs and the wicked Snitchey were a re-
cognised fiction with the two wives, as Doe and Roe, in-
cessantly running up and down bailiwicks, were with the
two husbands: or perhaps the ladies had instituted, and
taken upon themselves, these two shares in the business,
rather than be left out of it altogether. But certain it is,

298 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her
vocation as her husband did in his: and would have con-
sidered it almost impossible for the Firm to maintain a
successful and respectable existence, without her laudable
exertions.

But now the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down
the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle
in poussette; and the Doctor’s rosy face spun round and
round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and
breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether
country dancing had been made “ too easy,”’ like the rest
of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers,
footed it for Self, and Craggs, and half-a-dozen more.

Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favoured by the
lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high.
It was the Genius of the room, and present everywhere. It
shone in people’s eyes, it sparkled in the jewels on the
snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at their ears as if it whis-
pered to them slyly, it flashed about their waists, it flickered
on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed
upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces,
and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs. Craggs’s
little belfry.

Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle
as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with new
spirit; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and berries
dance upon the wall, as they had often done upon the trees;
and rustled in the room as if an invisible company of fairies,
treading in the footsteps of the good substantial revellers,
were whirling after them. Now, too, no feature of the
Doctor's face could be distinguished as he spun and spun;
and now there seemed a dozen Birds of Paradise in fitful
flight; and now there were a thousand little bells at work;
and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little tempest;
when the music gave in, and the dance was over.

Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made him
the more impatient for Alfred’s coming.

“Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been
heard? ”’

“Too dark to see far, Sir. Too much noise inside the
house to hear.” -"

“ That’s right! The gayer welcome for him. How
goes the time? ”

PART THE SECOND 299

“* Just twelve, Sir. He can’t be long, Sir.”

“ Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it,” said
the Doctor. ‘ Let him see his welcome blazing out upon
the night—good boy!—as he comes along! ”

He saw it—Yes! From the chaise he caught the light,
as he turned the corner by the old church. He knew the
room from which it shone. He saw the wintry branches of
the old trees between the light and him. He knew that one
of those trees rustled musically in the summer time at the
window of Marion’s chamber.

The tears were in his eyes. His heart throbbed so
violently that he could hardly bear his happiness. How
often he had thought of this time—pictured it under all
circumstances—feared that it might never come—yearned,
and wearied for it—far away!

Again the light! Distinct and ruddy; kindled, he knew
to give him welcome, and to speed him home. He beckoned
with his hand, and waved his hat, and cheered out, loud,
as if the light were they, and they could see and hear him,
as he dashed towards them through the mud and mire,
triumphantly.

“Stop! ’’ He knew the Doctor, and understood what
he had done. He would not let it be a surprise to them.
But he could make it one, yet, by going forward on foot.
If the orchard gate were open, he could enter there; if not,
the wall was easily climbed, as he knew of old; and he
would be among them in an instant.

He dismounted from his chaise, and telling the driver—
even that was not easy in his agitation—to remain behind
for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, ran on with
exceeding swiftness, tried the gate, scaled the wall, jumped
down on the other side, and stood panting in the old
orchard.

There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the
faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller
branches like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled
and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards
the house. The desolation of a winter night sat brooding
on the earth, and in the sky. But the red light came
cheerily towards him from the windows: figures passed and
repassed there: and the hum and murmur of voices greeted
his ear, sweetly.

Listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to detach

300 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

it from the rest, and half-believing that he heard it: he hac
nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and
a figure coming out encountered his. It instantly recoiled
with a half-suppressed cry.

“ Clemency,” he said, ‘‘ don’t you know me?”

“Don’t come in,” she answered, pushing him back.
“Go away. Don’t ask me why. Don’t come in.”

“‘ What’s the matter? ” he exclaimed.

“1 don’t know. [I—I am afraid to think. Go back.
Hark! ”

There was a sudden tumult in the house. She put her
hands upon her ears. A wild scream, such as no hands
could shut out, was heard; and Grace—distraction ‘in her
looks and manner—rushed out at the door.

“ Grace!’’ He caught her in his arms. ‘“‘ What is it?
Is she dead? ”

She disengaged herself, as if to recognise his face, and fell
down at his feet.

A crowd of figures came about them from the house.
Among them was her father, with a paper in his hand.

“What is it?’ cried Alfred, grasping his hair with his
hands, and looking in an agony from face to face, as he bent
upon his knee, beside the insensible girl. ‘‘ Will no one
look at me? Will no one speak to me? Does no one know
me? Is there no voice among you all, to tell me what it is! ”’

There was a murmur among them. “ She is gone.’”’

“ Gone!” he echoed. .

“ Fled, my dear Alfred!’ said the Doctor, in a broken
voice, and with his hands before his face. ‘‘ Gone from her
home and us. To-night! She writes that she has made
her innocent and blameless choice—entreats that we will
forgive her—prays that we will not forget her—and is
gone.”

“With whom? Where?”

He started up as if to follow in pursuit, but when they
gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them,
slaggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude,
clasping one of Grace’s cold hands in his own.

There was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, noise,
disorder, and no purpose. Some proceeded to disperse
themselves about the roads, and some took horse, and some
got lights, and some conversed together, urging that there
was no trace or track to follow. Some approached him

-—,

PART THE SECOND 301

kindly, with the view of offering consolation; some ad-
monished him that Grace must be removed into the house,
and he prevented it. He never heard them, and he never
moved.

The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment
in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon
his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. He looked
round on the whitening ground, and thought how Marion’s
foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as
made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. But
he never felt the weather, and he never stirred.

PART THE THIRD

THE world had grown six years older since that night of the
return. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had
been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the
clouds; and the old battle-ground, sparkling brilliantly
and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a
responsive welcome there, which spread along the country
side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered
from a thousand stations.

How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and
that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence,
brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before,
revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red; its
different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their
leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-
land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind
a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight where-
with to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, hedge-rows,
fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the
church, the stream, the water-mill, all sprung out of the
gloomy darkness, smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers
raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the
invigorated ground; the blue expanse above, extended
‘and diffused itself; already the sun’s slanting rays pierced
mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its
flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colours that adorned
the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its trium-

phant glory.

302 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

At such a time, one little roadside Inn, snugly sheltered
behind a great elm-tree with a rare seat for idlers encircling
its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the
traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, and tempted
him with many mute but significant assurances of a com-
fortable welcome. The ruddy sign-board perched up in the
tree, with its golden letters winking in the sun, ogled the
passer-by from among the green leaves, like a jolly face,
and promised good cheer. The horse-trough, full of clear
fresh water, and the ground below it, sprinkled with drop-
pings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed prick
up his ears. The crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and
the pure white hangings in the little bed-chambers above,
beckoned, Come in! with every breath of air. Upon the
bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer
and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; and an affecting
picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. Upon the
window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which
made a lively show against the white front of the house;
and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of
light, which glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and
tankards.

On the door-step appeared a proper figure of a landlord,
too; for though he was a short man, he was round and
broad; and stood with his hands in his pockets, and his legs
just wide enough apart to express a mind at rest upon the
subject of the cellar, and an easy confidence—too calm and
virtuous to become a swagger—in the general resources of
the Inn. The superabundant moisture, trickling from
everything after the late rain, set him off well. Nothing
near him was thirsty. Certain top-heavy dahlias, looking
over the palings of his neat well-ordered garden, had swilled
as much as they could carry—perhaps a trifle more—and
may have been the worse for liquor; but the sweetbriar,
roses, wall-flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves
on the old tree, were in the beaming state of moderate
company that had taken no more than was wholesome for
them, and had served to develop their best qualities.
Sprinkling dewy drops about them on the ground, they
seemed profuse of innocent and sparkling mirth, that did
good where it lighted, softening neglected corners which the
steady rain could seldom reach, and hurting nothing.

This village Inn had assumed, on being established,

PART THE THIRD 303

an uncommon sign. It was called The Nutmeg-Grater.
And underneath that household word, was inscribed, up in
the tree, on the same flaming board, and in the like golden
characters, By Benjamin Britain.

At a second glance, and on a more minute examination
of his face, you might have known that it was no other
than Benjamin Britain himself who stood in the doorway—
reasonably changed by time, but for the better; a very
comfortable host indeed.

“Mrs. B.,” said Mr. Britain, looking down the road,
“is rather late. It’s tea time.”

As there was no Mrs. Britain coming, he strolled leisurely
out into the road and looked up at the house, very much to
his satisfaction. ‘“* It’s just the sort of house,” said Benjamin,
** T should wish to stop at, if I didn’t keep it.”

Then he strolled towards the garden paling, and took
a look at the dahlias. They looked over at him, with a
helpless, drowsy hanging of their heads: which bobbed
again, as the heavy drops of wet dripped off them.

“ You must be looked after,” said Benjamin. ‘‘ Memor-
andum, not to forget to tell her so. She’s a long time
coming!”

Mr. Britain’s better half seemed to be by so very much
his better half, that his own moiety of himself was utterly
cast away and helpless without her.

“She hadn’t much to do, I think,” said Ben. ‘* There
were a few little matters of business after market, but not
many. Oh! here we are at last!”

A chaise-cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along the
road: and seated in it, in a chair, with a large, well-saturated
umbrella spread out to dry behind her, was the plump
figure of a matronly woman, with her bare arms folded across
a basket which she carried on her knee, several other baskets
and parcels lying crowded about her, and a certain bright
good-nature in her face and contented awkwardness in her
manner, as she jogged to and fro with the motion of her
carriage, which smacked of old times, even in the distance.
Upon her nearer approach, this relish of bygone days was
not diminished; and when the cart stopped at the Nutmeg-
Grater door, a pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped
nimbly through Mr. Britain’s open arms, and came down with
a substantial weight upon the pathway, which shoes could
hardly have belonged to any one but Clemency Newcome.

304 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

In fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them,
and a rosy, comfortable-looking soul she was; with as
much soap on her glossy face as in times of yore, but with
whole elbows now, that had grown quite dimpled in her
improved condition.

“You're late, Clemmy! ” said Mr. Britain.

“ Why, you see, Ben, I’ve had a deal to do! ” she replied,
looking busily after the safe removal into the house of all
the packages and baskets; “eight, nine, ten—where’s
eleven? Oh! my basket’s eleven! It’s all right. Put
the horse up, Harry, and if he coughs again give him a warm
mash to-night. Eight, nine, ten. Why, where’s eleven?
Oh, I forgot, it’s all right. How’s the children, Ben? ”

“ Hearty, Clemmy, hearty.”

‘Bless their precious faces!’’ said Mrs. Britain, un-
bonneting her own round countenance (for she and her
husband were by this time in the bar), and smoothing her
hair with her open hands. “* Give us a kiss, old man.”

Mr. Britain promptly complied.

**T think,” said Mrs. Britain, applying herself to her
pockets and drawing forth an immense bulk of thin books
and crumpled papers, a very kennel of dogs’ ears: “ I’ve
done everything. Bills all settled—turnips sold—brewer’s
account looked into and paid—'baceo pipes ordered—
seventeen pound four paid into the Bank—Doctor Heath-
field’s charge for little Clem—you’ll guess what that is—
Doctor Heathfield won’t take nothing again, Tim.”

“ T thought he wouldn’t,’’ returned Britain.

“No. He says whatever family you was to have, Tim,
he'd never put you to the cost of a halfpenny. Not if you
was to have twenty.”

Mr. Britain’s face assumed a serious expression, and he
looked hard at the wall.

“ A’n’t it kind of him? ’’ said Clemency.

“Very,” returned Mr. Britain. ‘‘ It’s a sort of kind-
ness that I wouldn’t presume upon, on any account.”

“No,” retorted Clemency. ‘ Of course not. Then
there’s the pony—he fetched cight pound two; and that
a’n’t bad, is it? ”’

“It’s very good,” said Ben.

“I’m glad you're pleased!” exclaimed his wife. “I
thought you would be; and I think that’s all, and so no
more at present from yours and cetrer, C. Britain. Ha,

a.

aes

PART THE THIRD 305

ha,ha! There! Take all the papers, and lock ’em up. Oh!
Wait a minute. Here’s a printed bill to stick on the wall.
Wet from the printer’s. How nice it smells! ”’

““What’s this? ” said Tim, looking over the document.

“T don’t know,” replied his wife. ‘I haven’t read a
word of it.”

““« To be sold by Auction,’ ’’ read the host of the Nutmeg
Grater, “‘‘ unless previously disposed of by private con-
tracts

“‘ They always put that,’ said Clemency.

“Yes, but they don’t always put this,’ he returned.
“Look here, ‘ Mansion,’ &c—‘ offices,’ &c., ‘ shrubberies,’
&e., ‘ring fence,’ &c. ‘Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs,’
&e. ‘ornamental portion of the unencumbered freehold
property of Michael Warden, Esquire, intending to con-
tinue to reside abroad’! ”’

“Intending to continue to reside abroad!” repeated
Clemency.

** Here it is,”’ said Mr. Britain. ‘‘ Look! ”

“ And it was only this very day that I heard it whispered
at the old house, that better and plainer news had been half
promised of her, soon!” said Clemency, shaking her head
sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if the recollection
of old times unconsciously awakened her old habits. ‘‘ Dear,
dear, dear! There’ll be heavy hearts, Ben, yonder.”’

Mr. Britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and said
he couldn’t make it out: he had left off trying long ago.
With that remark, he applied himself to putting up the
bill just inside the bar window: and Clemency, after
meditating in silence for a few moments, roused herself,
cleared her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to look after
the children.

Though the host of the Nutmeg-Grater had a lively
regard for his good wife, it was of the old patronising kind;
and she amused him mightily. Nothing would have
astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from
any third party, that it was she who managed the whole
house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift,
good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So
easy it is, in any degree of life (as the world very often finds
it), to take those cheerful natures that never assert their
merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a
flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and

306 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we could look so far,
might make us blush in the comparison!

It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own
condescension in having married Clemency. She was a
perpetual testimony to him of the goodness of his heart,
and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt that her
being an excellent wife was an illustration of the old precept
that virtue is its own reward.

He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the
vouchers for her day’s proceedings in the cupboard—
chuckling all the time, over her capacity for business—
when, returning with the news that the two Master Britains
were playing in the coach-house, under the superintendence
of one Betsy, and that little Clem was sleeping “like a
picture,’”’ she sat down to tea, which had awaited her arrival,
onalittle table. It wasa very neat little bar, with the usual
display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to the
minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and
everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost.

*Tt’s the first time I’ve sat down quietly to-day, I
declare,’ said Mrs. Britain, taking a long breath, as if she
had sat down for the night; but getting up again immedi-
ately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his bread-
and-butter; ‘‘ how that bill does set me thinking of old
times!”

“Ah!” said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an
oyster, and disposing of its contents on the same principle.

“That same Mr, Michael Warden,” said Clemency,
shaking her head at the notice of sale, ‘* lost me my old place.”

“ And got you your husband,” said Mr. Britain.

“Well! So he did,’’ retorted Clemency, ‘‘ and many
thanks to him.”

‘““Man’s the creature of habit,’ said Mr. Britain, survey-
ing her, over his saucer. ‘‘ I had somehow got used to you,
Clem; and I found I shouldn’t be able to get on without
you. So we went and got made man and wife. Ha, ha!
We! Who'd have thought it! ’”’

“Who, indeed!” cried Clemency. ‘ It was very good.

of you, Ben.”

“No, no, no,” replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self-
denial. “ Nothing worth mentioning.”

“ Oh yes it was, Ben,” said his wife, with great simplicity;
“I’m sure I think so; and am very much obliged to you.

ae mang

PART THE THIRD 307

Ah! ” looking again at the bill; ** when she was known to be
gone, and out of reach, dear girl, I couldn’t help telling—
for her sake quite as much as theirs—what I knew, could I?”

“You told it, any how,’ observed her husband.

“ And Doctor Jeddler,’’ pursued Clemency, putting down
her tea-cup, and looking thoughtfully at the bill, “in his
grief and passion, turned me out of house and home! I
never have been so glad of anything in all my life, as that I
didn’t say an angry word to him, and hadn’t an angry feeling
towards him, even then; for he repented that truly, after-
wards. How often he has sat in this room, and told me over
and over again, he was sorry for it!—the last time, only
yesterday, when you were out. How often he has sat in this
room, and talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing
and another, in which he made believe to be interested !—
but only for the sake of the days that are gone away, and
because he knows she used to like me, Ben! ”’

“Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of
that, Clem?’’ asked her husband: astonished that she
should have a distinct perception of a truth which had only
dimly suggested itself to his inquiring mind.

““T don’t know, I’m sure,” said Clemency, blowing her
tea, to coolit. ‘“‘ Bless you, I couldn’t tell you if you was
to offer me a reward of a hundred pound.”

He might have pursued this metaphysical subject but
for her catching a glimpse of a substantial fact behind him,
in the shape of a gentleman attired in mourning, and
cloaked and booted like a rider on horseback, who stood at
the bar-door. He seemed attentive to their conversation,
and not at all impatient to interrupt it.

Clemency hastily rose at this sight. Mr. Britain also
rose and saluted the guest. ‘ Will you please to walk
upstairs, sir. There’s a very nice room upstairs, Sir.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger, looking earnestly at
Mr. Britain’s wife. ‘‘ May I come in here? ”’

“Oh, surely, if you like, Sir,’ returned Clemency, ad-
mitting him. ‘‘ What would you please to want, Sir?”

The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it.

“Excellent property that, Sir,’ observed Mr. Britain.

He made no answer; but turning round, when he had
finished reading, looked at Clemency with the same observant
curigsity as before. ‘‘ You were asking me—’’ he said, still

looking at her.

308 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“What you would please to take, Sir,’ answered
Clemency, stealing a glance at him in return. ’

“Tf you will let me have a draught of ale,’ he said,
moving to a table by the window, “ and will let me have it
here, without being any interruption to your meal, I shall
be much obliged to you.”

He sat down as he spoke, without any further parley,
and looked out at the prospect. He was an easy, well-knit
figure of a man in the prime of life. His face, much browned
by the sun, was shaded by a quantity of dark hair, and he
wore a moustache. His beer being set before him, he filled
out a glass, and drank, good-humouredly, to the house;
adding, as he put the tumbler down again:

‘It’s a new house, is it not?”

“ Not particularly new, Sir,” replied Mr. Britain.

‘Between five and six years old,” said Clemency;
speaking very distinctly.

“T think I heard you mention Dr. Jeddler’s name as I
came in,” inquired the stranger. ‘‘ That bill reminds me
of him; for I happen to know something of that story, by
hearsay, and through certain connexions of mine.—lIs the
old man living? ”

** Yes, he’s living, Sir,”’ said Clemency.

“Much changed? ” :

“Since when, Sir,” returned Clemency,with remarkable
emphasis and expression.

“Since his daughter—went away.”

“Yes! he’s greatly changed since then,” said Clemency.
“ He’s grey and old, and hasn’t the same way with him at
all; but I think he’s happy now. He has taken on with his
sister since then, and goes to see her very often. That did
him good, direclly. At first, he was sadly broken down;
and it was enough to make one’s heart bleed to see him
wandering about, railing at the world; but a great change
for the better came over him after a year or two, and then
he began to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to
praise her, ay and the world too! and was never tired of
saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and
good she was. He had forgiven her then. That was about
the same time as Miss Grace’s marriage. Britain, you
remember? ”

Mr. Britain remembered very well.

“The sister is married then,” returned the stranger.

~w

PART THE THIRD 309

He paused for some time before he asked, “To
whom? ”

Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board,
in her emotion at this question.

“Did you never hear? ” she said.

“T should like to hear,” he replied, as he filled his glass
again, and raised it to his lips.

“ Ah! it would be a long story, if it was properly told,”
said Clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand,
and supporting that elbow on her right hand, as she shook
her head, and looked back through the intervening years,
as if she were looking at a fire. ‘ It would be a long story,
I am sure.”

“But told as a short one,” suggested the stranger.

“Told as a short one,’”’ repeated Clemency in the same
thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to
him, or consciousness of having auditors, ‘“‘ what would there
be to tell? That they grieved together, and remembered
her together, like a person dead; that they were so tender
of her, never would reproach her, called her back to one
another as she used to be, and found excuses for her? Every
one knows that. I’m sure J do. No one better,” added
Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand.

“* And so,” suggested the stranger.

«And so,” said Clemency, taking him up mechanically,
and without any change in her attitude or manner, ‘ they
at last were married. They were married on her birth-day
—it comes round again to-morrow—very quiet, very
humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, one night
when they were walking in the orchard, ‘ Grace, shall our
wedding-day be Marion’s birth-day?’ And it was.”

“And they have lived happily together?” said the
stranger.

“ Ay,” said Clemency. ‘“‘ No two people ever more so.
They have had no sorrow but this.”

She raised her head as with a sudden attention to the
circumstances under which she was recalling these events,
and looked quickly at the stranger. Seeing that his face
was turned towards the window, and that he seemed intent
upon the prospect, she made some eager signs to her hus-
band, and pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth, as if
she were repeating with great energy, one word or phrase
to him over and over again. As she uttered no sound, and

310 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

as her dumb motions like most of her gestures were of a very
extraordinary kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced Mr.
Britain to the confines of despair. He stared at the table,
at the stranger, at the spoons, at his wife—followed her
pantomime with looks of deep amazement and perplexity
asked in the same language, was it property in danger, was it
hein danger, was it she—answered her signals with other
signals expressive of the deepest distress and confusion—fol-
lowed the motions of her lips—guessed half aloud ‘ milk
and water,’ “ monthly warning,” “‘ mice and walnuts ”’—
and couldn’t approach her meaning.

Clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; and
moving her chair by very slow degrees a little nearer to the
stranger, sat with her eyes apparently cast down but
glancing sharply at him now and then, waiting until he
should ask some other question. She had not to wait long;
for he said, presently,

‘* And what is the after history of the young lady who
went away? They know it, I suppose? ”

Clemency shook her head. ‘* I’ve heard,’ she said,
“‘ that Doctor Jeddler is thought to know more of it than he
tells. Miss Grace has had letters from her sister, saying
that she was well and happy, and made much happier by her
being married to Mr. Alfred: and has written letters back.
But there’s a mystery about her life and fortunes, altogether,
which nothing has cleared up to this hour, and which a

She faltered here, and stopped.

“ And which *” repeated the stranger.

“Which only one other person, I believe, could explain,”
said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly.

“Who may that be?” asked the stranger.

“Mr. Michael Warden! ”’ answered Clemency, almost in
a shriek: at once conveying to her husband what she would
have had him understand before, and letting Michael
Warden know that he was recognised.

“You remember me, Sir,” said Clemency, trembling
with emotion; ‘ I saw just now you did! You remember
me, that night in the garden. I was with her!”

“Yes. You were,” he said.

“Yes, Sir,” returned Clemency. “ Yes, to be sure.
This is my husband, if you please. Ben, my dear Ben,
run to Miss Grace—run to Mr. Alfred—run somewhere,
Ben! Bring somebody here, directly! ”

PART THE THIRD 31t

“Stay!” said Michael Warden, quietly interposing
himself between the door and Britain. ‘“ What would
you do? ”

“Let them know that you are here, Sir,” answered
Clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. ‘Let
them know that they may hear of her, from your own lips;
let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but that
She will come home again yet, to bless her father and her
loving sister—even her old servant, even me,” she struck
herself upon the breast with both hands, ‘‘ with a sight of
her sweet face. Run, Ben, run!” And still she pressed
him on towards the door, and still Mr. Warden stood before
it, with his hand stretched out, not angrily, but sorrowfully.

* Or perhaps,” said Clemency, running past her husband,
and catching in her emotion at Mr. Warden’s cloak, “ per-
haps she’s here now; perhaps she’s close by. I think from
your manner she is. Let me see her, Sir, if you please. I
waited on her when she was a little child. I saw her grow
to be the pride of all this place. I knew her when she was
Mr. Alfred’s promised wife. I tried to warn her when you
tempted her away. I know what her old home was when
she was like the soul of it, and how it changed when she
was gone and lost. Let me speak to her, if you please! ”’

He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with
wonder: but he made no gesture of assent.

** T don’t think she can know,”’ pursued Clemency, “ how
truly they forgive her; how they love her; what joy it
would be to them, to see her once more. She may be
timorous of going home. Perhapsif she sees me, it may give
her new heart. Only tell me, truly, Mr. Warden, is she
with you? ”

« She is not,’’ he answered, shaking his head.

This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and
his coming back so quietly, and his announced intention
of continuing to live abroad, explained it all. Marion
was dead.

He didn’t contradict her; yes, she was dead! Clem-
ency sat down, hid her face upon the table, and cried.

At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came
running in quite out of breath, and panting so much that
his voice was scarcely to be recognised as the voice of Mr.

Snitchey. ;
“Good Heaven, Mr. Warden! ”’ said the lawyer, taking

312 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

him aside. ‘‘ what wind has blown——’”’ He was so blown
himself, that he couldn’t get on any further until after a
pause, when he added, feebly, ‘‘ you here? ”

An ill wind, I am afraid,’ he answered. “ If you
could have heard what has just passed—how I have been
besought and entreated to perform impossibilities—what
confusion and affliction I carry with me! ”

“J can guess it all. But why did you ever come here,
my good Sir?” retorted Snitchey.

“Come! How should I know who kept the house?
When I sent my servant on to you, I strolled in here because
the place was new to me; and I had a natural curiosity in
everything new and old, in these old scenes; and it was
outside the town. I wanted to communicate with you
first, before appearing there. I wanted to know what
people would say to me. I see by your manner that you
can tell me. If it were not for your confounded caution, I
should have been possessed of everything long ago.”

“Our caution! ’”’ returned the lawyer. ‘‘ Speaking for
Self and Craggs—deceased,”’ here Mr. Snitchey, glancing at
his hat-band, shook his head, “ how can you reasonably
blame us, Mr. Warden? It was understood between us
that the subject was never to be renewed, and that it wasn’t
a subject on which grave and sober men like us (I made a
note of your observations at the time) could interfere?
Our caution too! when Mr. Craggs, Sir, went down to his
respected grave in the full belief af

“Thad given a solemn promise of silence until I should
return, whenever that might be,’’ interrupted Mr. Warden;
“and I have kept it.”

“ Well, Sir, and I repeat it,” returned Mr. Snitchey,
““we were bound to silence too. We were bound to silence
in our duty towards ourselves, and in our duty towards a
variety of clients, you among them, who were as close as
wax. It was not our place to make inquiries of you on such
a delicate subject. I had my suspicions, Sir; but it is not
six months since I have known the truth, and been assured
that you lost her.”

“By whom ?” inquired his client.

“By Doctor Jeddler himself, Sir, who at last reposed
that confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has
known the whole truth, years and years,“

* And you know it?” said his client.

PART THE THIRD 313

*“T do, Sir!” replied Snitchey; “and I have also
reason to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow
evening. They have given her that promise. In the
meantime, perhaps you'll give me the honour of your com-
pany at my house; being unexpected at your own. But,
not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you
have had here, in case you should be recognised—though
you’re a good deal changed—I think I might have passed you
myself, Mr. Warden—we had better dine here, and walk on
in the evening. It’s a very good place to dine at, Mr.
Warden: your own property, by-the-bye. Self and Craggs
(deceased) took a chop here sometimes, and had it very
comfortably served. Mr. Craggs, Sir,’’ said Snitchey, shut-
ting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again,
“was struck off the roll of life too soon.”

“ Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you,’’ re-
turned Michael Warden, passing his hand across his fore-
head, “‘ but I’m like a man in a dream at present. I seem
to want my wits. Mr. Craggs—yes—I am very sorry we
have lost Mr. Craggs.”’ But he looked at Clemency as he
said it, and seemed to sympathise with Ben, consoling
her.

“Mr. Craggs, Sir,”’ observed Snitchey, ‘‘ didn’t find life,
I regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory
made it out, or he would have been among us now. It’sa
great loss to me. He was my right arm, my right leg, my
right ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic
without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to
Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns.
His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a
childish sort of a way, to make believe sometimes that he’s
alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs—
deceased, Sir—deceased,” said the tender-hearted attorney,
waving his pocket-handkerchief.

Michael Warden, who had still been observant of
Clemency, turned to Mr. Snitchey, when he ceased to speak,
and whispered in his ear.

“Ah, poor thing!” said Snitchey, shaking his head.
“ Yes. She was always very faithful to Marion. She was
always very fond of her. Pretty Marion! Poor Marion!
Cheer up. Mistress—you are married now, you know,

Clemency.”’
Clemency only sighed, and shook her head.

314 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“ Well, well! Wait till to-morrow,” said the lawyer,
kindly.

“To-morrow can’t bring back the dead to life, Mister,”
said Clemency, sobbing.

“No. It can’t do that, or it would bring back Mr.
Craggs, deceased,” returned the lawyer. “ But it may
bring some soothing circumstances; it may bring some
comfort. Wait till to-morrow.”

So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said that she
would; and Britain, who had been terribly cast down at
sight of his despondent wife (which was like the business
hanging its head), said that was right; and Mr. Snitchey
and Michael Warden went upstairs; and there they were
soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously conducted,
that no murmur of it was audible above the clatter of
plates and dishes, the hissing of the frying-pan, the bubbling
of saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the jack—
with a dreadful click every now and then as if it had met
with some mortal accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness—
and all the other preparations in the kitchen for their
dinner.

To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere
were the autumn tints more beautifully seen than from the
quiet orchard of the Doctor’s house. The snows of many
winter nights had melted from that ground, the withered
leaves of many summer times had rustled there, since she
had fled. The honeysuckle porch was green again, the
trees cast- bountiful and changing shadows on the grass, the
landscape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever been;
but where was she!

Not there. Not there. She would have been a
stranger sight in her old home now, even than that home
had been at first, without her. But a lady sat in her
familiar place, from whose heart she had never passed
away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging,
youthful, radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose
affection—and it was a mother’s now: there was a cherished
little daughter playing by her side—she had no rival, no
successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trembling
then. 4

The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes.
Those eyes of Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in

PART THE THIRD 315

the orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and Marion’s
birth-day.

He had not become a great man; he had not grown
rich; he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his
youth: he had not fulfilled any one of the Doctor’s old pre-
dictions. But in his useful, patient, unknown visiting of
poor men’s homes; and in his watching of sick-beds; and
in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and goodness
flowering the by-paths of the world, not to be trodden down
beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but springing up,
elastic, in its track, and making its way beautiful; he had
better learned and proved, in each succeeding year, the
truth of his old faith. The manner of his life, though quiet
and remote, had shown him how often men still entertained
angels unawares, as in the olden time; and how the most
unlikely forms even some that were mean and ugly to the
view, and poorly clad—became irradiated by the couch of
sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits
with a glory round their heads.

He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground
perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more am-
bitious lists; and he was happy with his wife, dear Grace.

And Marion. Had he forgotten her?

“The time has flown, dear Grace,’ he said, “ since
then;”’ they had been talking of that night; “and yet it
seems a long, long while ago. We count by changes and
events within us. Not by years.”

“Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion
was with us,’ returned Grace. ‘“ Six times, dear husband,
counting to-night as one, we have sat here on her birth-day,
and spoken together of that happy return, so eagerly ex-
pected and so long deferred. Ah, when will it be! When
will it be!”

Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears
collected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said—

“But Marion told you, in that farewell letter which she
left for you upon your table, love, and which you read so
often, that years must pass away before it could be. Did

she not? ”’
She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said,

Res."
“ That through those intervening years, however happy

she might be, she would look forward to the time when you

316 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

would meet again, and all would be made clear: and prayed
you, trustfully and hopefully to do the same. The letter
runs so, does it not, my dear?”

“Yes, Alfred.”

“ And every other letter she has written since? ”

“ Except the last—some months ago—in which she spoke
of you, and what you then knew, and what I was to learn
to-night.”

He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and
said that the appointed time was sunset.

‘ Alfred! ” said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder,
earnestly, “ there is something in this letter—this old letter,
which you say I read so often—that I have never told you.
But to-night, dear husband, with that sunset drawing near,
and all our life seeming to soften and become hushed with
the departing day, I cannot keep it secret.”

‘‘ What is it, love? ”

** When Marion went away she wrote me, here, that you
had once left her a sacred trust to me, and that now she left
you, Alfred, such a trust in my hands: praying and beseech-
ing me, as I loved her, and as I loved you, not to reject
the affection she believed (she knew, she said) you would
transfer to me when the new wound was healed, but to
encourage and: return it.”

““—-And make me a proud, and happy man again, Grace.
Did she say so? ”’

‘She meant, to make myself so blest and honoured in
your love,’’ was his wife’s answer, as he held her in his arms.

‘“ Hear me, my dear! ’’ he said—‘‘ No. Hear me so! ”
—and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised,
again upon his shoulder. ‘‘ I know why I have never heard
this passage in the letter, until now. I know why no trace
of it ever showed itself in any word or look of yours at that
time. I know why Grace, although so true a friend to me,
was hard to win to be my wife. And knowing it, my own!
I know the priceless value of the heart I gird within my arms,
and thank Gon for the rich possession! ”

She wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his
heart. After a brief space, he looked down at the child,
who was sitting at their feet, playing with a little basket of
flowers, and bade her look how golden and how red the sun
was.

‘ Alfred,’’ said Grace, raising her head quickly at these

PART THE THIRD 317

words. “ The sun is going down. ‘You have not forgotten
what I am to know before it sets.”

“You are to know the truth of Marion’s history, my
love,’’ he answered.

“ All the truth,” she said imploringly. ‘‘ Nothing veiled
from me any more. That was the promise. Was it not? ”

“Tt was,” he answered.

“Before the sun went down on Marion’s birth-day.
And you see it, Alfred? It is sinking fast.”

He put his arm about her waist; and, looking steadily
into her eyes, rejoined—

“ That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear
Grace. It is to come from other lips.”

“From other lips! ’’ she faintly echoed.

“Yes. I know your constant heart, I know how brave
you are, I know that to you a word of preparation is enough.
You have said, truly, that the time is come. It is. Tell
me that you have present fortitude to bear a trial—a
surprise—a shock: and the messenger is waiting at the

gate.”
‘“ What messenger?’”’ she said. “And what intelli-

gence does he bring? ”

“Tam pledged,” he answered her, preserving his steady
look, “to say no more. Do you think you understand
me? ”

“ T am afraid to think,” she said.

There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady
gaze, which frightened her. Again she hid her own face on
his shoulder, trembling, and entreated him to pause—a
moment.

“‘ Courage, my wife! When you have firmness to receive
the messenger, the messenger is waiting at the gate. The
sun is setting on Marion’s birth-day. Courage, courage,
Grace! ”

She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she
was ready. As she stood, and looked upon him going away,
her face was so like Marion’s as it had been in her later days
at home, that it was wonderful to see. He took the child
with him. She called her back—-she bore the lost girl’s
name—and pressed her to her bosom. ‘The little creature,
being released again, sped after him, and Grace was left

alone.
She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but

318 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by which
they had disappeared.

Ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; standing
onits threshold! that figure, with its white garments rustling
in the evening air; its head laid down upon her father’s
breast, and pressed against it to his loving heart! Oh,
God! was it a vision that came bursting from the old man’s
arms, and with a cry, and with a waving of its hands, and
with a wild precipitation of itself upon her in its boundless
love, sank down in her embrace!

‘Oh, Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart’s
dear love! Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet
again! ”

It was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and
fear, but Marion, sweet Marion! So beautiful, so happy,
so unalloyed by care and trial, so elevated and exalted in
her loveliness, that as the setting sun shone brightly on her
upturned face, she might have been a spirit visiting the
earth upon some healing mission.

Clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat,
and bent down over her: and smiling through her tears,

“and kneeling close before her, with both arms twining round
her, and never turning for an instant from her face: and
with the glory of the setting sun upon her brow, and with
the soft tranquillity of evening gathering around them:
Marion at length broke silence: her voice, so calm, low,
clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to the time.

“When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now,
again ¥

“Stay, my sweet love! A moment! Oh, Marion, to
hear you speak again! ”’

She could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first.

“ When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now,
again, I loved him from my soul. I loved him most de-
votedly. Iwould have died for him, though I was so young.
Inever slighted his affection in my secret breast, for one brief
instant. It was far beyond all price to me. Although it is
so long ago, and past and gone, and everything is wholly
changed, I could not bear to think that you, who love so
well, should think I did not truly love him once. I never
loved him better, Grace, than when he left this very scene
upon this very day. I never loved him better, dear one,
than I did that night when J left here.”

PART THE THIRD 319

Her sister, bending over her, could only look into her
face, and hold her fast.

“But he had gained, unconsciously,” said Marion, with
a gentle smile, ‘“‘ another heart, before I knew that I had one
to givehim. That heart—yours, my sister—was so yielded
up, in all its other tenderness, to me; was so devoted, and
so noble; that it plucked its love away, and kept its secret
from all eyes but mine—Ah! what other eyes were quickened
by such tenderness and gratitude!—and was content to
sacrifice itself to me. But I knew something of its depths.
I knew the struggle it had made. I knew its high, inestim-
able worth to him, and his appreciation of it, let him love
me as he would. I knew the debt I owed it. I had its
great example every day before me. What you had done
for me, I knew that I could do, Grace, if I would, for you.
I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I prayed with
tears to doit. Inever laid my head down on my pillow, but
I thought of Alfred’s own words, on the day of his departure,
and how truly he had said (for I knew that, by you) that
there were victories gained every day, in struggling hearts,
to which these fields of battle were as nothing. Thinking
more and more upon the great endurance cheerfully sus-
tained, and never known or cared for, that there must be
every day and hour, in that great strife of which he spoke,
my trial seemed to grow light and easy; and He who knows
our hearts, my dearest, at this moment, and who knows
there is no drop of bitterness or grief—of anything but un-
mixed happiness—in mine, enabled me to make the resolu-
tion that I never would be Alfred’s wife. That he should
be my brother, and your husband, if the course I took
could bring that happy end to pass; but that I never would
(Grace, I then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his wife! ”

“Oh, Marion! oh, Marion! ”

““T had tried to seem indifferent to him!” and she
pressed her sister’s face against her own; “but that was
hard, and you were always his true advocate. I had tried
to tell you of my resolution, but you would never hear me;
you would never understand me. The time was drawing
near for his return. I felt that I must act, before the daily
intercourse between us was renewed. I knew that one great
pang, undergone at that time, would save a lengthened
agony to all of us. I knew that if I went away then, that
end must follow which has followed, and which has made us

320 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

both so happy, Grace! I wrote to good Aunt Martha, for
a refuge in her house: I did not then tell her all, but some-
thing of my story, and she freely promised it. While I was
contesting that step with myself, and with my love of you,
and home, Mr. Warden, brought here by an accident, be-
came, for some time, our companion.”

“I have sometimes feared, of late years, that this might
have been,’’ exclaimed her sister, and her countenance was
ashy pale. ‘‘ You never loved him—and you married him
in your self-sacrifice to me? ”

‘He was then,” said Marion, drawing her sister closer
to her, “‘ on the eve of going secretly away for a long time.
He wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what his con-
dition and prospects really were; and offered me his hand.
He told me he had seen I was not happy in the prospect of
Alfred’s return. I believe he thought my heart had no part
in that contract; perhaps thought I might have loved him
once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried
to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference—I cannot
tell. But I wished that you should feel me wholly lost to
Alfred—hopeless to him—dead. Do you understand me,
love? ”

Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She seemed
in doubt.

“T saw Mr. Warden, and confided in his honour;
charged him with my secret, on the eve of his and my de-
parture. He keptit. Do you understand me, dear? ’’

Grace looked confusedly upon her. She scarcely seemed
to hear. re)

““My love, my sister!’ said Marion, “ recall your thoughts
a moment: listen tome. Do not look so strangely on me.
There are countries, dearest, where those who would abjure
a misplaced passion, or would strive against some cherished
feeling of their hearts and conquer it, retire into a hopeless
solitude, and close the world against themselves and worldly
loves and hopes for ever. When women do so, they assume
that name which is so dear to you and me, and call each
other Sisters. But there may be sisters, Grace, who, in
the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky,
and in its crowded places and among its busy life, and trying
to assist and cheer it and to do some good,—learn the same
lesson; and, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all
happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long

PART THE THIRD 321

past, the victory long won. And such a one am I! You
understand me now? ” ;

Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply.

“Oh, Grace, dear Grace!” said Marion, clinging yet
more tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she had
been so long exiled, “if you were not a happy wife and
mother—if I had no little namesake here—if Alfred, my
kind brother, were not yourown fond husband—from whence
could I derive the ecstasy I feel to-night! But as I left here,
so I have returned. My heart has known no other love,
my hand has never been bestowed apart from it, I am stil]
your maiden sister: unmarried, unbetrothed: your old own
loving Marion, in whose affection you exist alone, and have
no partner, Grace! ”’

She understood her now. Her face relaxed; sobs
came to her relief; and falling on her neck, she wept and
wept, and fondled her as if she were a child again.

When they were more composed, they found that the
Doctor, and his sister, good Aunt Martha, were standing
near at hand, with Alfred.

“This is a weary day for me,” said good Aunt Martha,
smiling through her tears, as she embraced her nieces;
“‘for I lose my dear companion in making you all happy;
and what can you give me in return for my Marion? ”

“ A converted brother,” said the Doctor.

“ That’s something, to be sure,’”’ retorted Aunt Martha,
** in such a farce as——”’

“No, pray don’t,”’ said the Doctor, penitently.

““ Well, I won’t,” replied Aunt Martha. ‘ But I con-
sider myself ill-used. I don’t know what’s to become of
me without my Marion, after we have lived together half-
a-dozen years.”

“You must come and live here, I suppose,” replied the
Doctor. ‘‘ We sha’n’t quarrel now, Martha.”

“Or get married, Aunt,’ said Alfred.

‘ Indeed,” returned the old lady, ‘‘ I think it might bea
good speculation if I were to set my cap at Michael Warden,
who, I hear, is come home much the better for his absence,
in all respects. But as I knew him when he was a boy, and
I was not a very young woman then, perhaps he mightn’t
respond. So I’ll make up my mind to go and live with
Marion, when she marries, and until then (it will not be very
long, I dare say) to live alone. What do you say, brother? 4

12—L

322 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“T’ve a great mind to say it’s a ridiculous world alto-
gether, and there’s nothing serious in it,’’ observed the poor
old Doctor.

“You might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose,
Anthony,” said his sister; “‘ but nobody would believe you
with such eyes as those.”

‘“‘ Tt’s a world full of hearts,” said the Doctor, hugging
his younger daughter, and bending across her to hug Grace
—for he couldn’t separate the sisters; “‘ and a serious world,
with all its folly—even with mine, which was enough to
have swamped the whole globe; and a world on which the
sun never rises, but it looks upon a thousand bloodless
battles that are some set-off against the miseries and
wickedness of Battle-Fields; and a world we need be care-
ful how we libel, Heaven forgive us, for it is a world of
sacred mysteries, and its Creator only knows what lies
beneath the surface of His lightest image! ”

You would not be the better pleased with my rude pen,
if it dissected and laid open to your view the transports of
this family, long severed and now reunited. Therefore, I
will not follow the poor Doctor through his humbled re-
collection of the sorrow he had had, when Marion was lost
to him; nor will I tell how serious he had found that world
to be, in which some love deep-anchored is the portion of all
human creatures; nor how such a trifle as the absence of
one little unit in the great absurd account, had stricken him
to the ground. Nor how, in compassion for his distress,
his sister had, long ago, revealed the truth to him, by slow
degrees; and brought him to the knowledge of the heart of
his self-banished daughter, and to that daughter’s side.

Nor how Alfred Heathfield had been told the truth, too,
in the course of that then current year; and Marion had
seen him, and had promised him, as her brother, that on her
birth-day, in the evening, Grace should know it from her
lips at last.

“ T beg your pardon, Doctor,” said Mr. Snitchey, looking
{nto the orchard, “ but have I liberty to come in? ”

Without waiting for permission, he came straight ta
Marion, and kissed her hand, quite joyfully.

“Tf Mr. Craggs had been alive, my dear Miss Marion,”
said Mr. Snitchey, ‘‘ he would have had great interest in this
occasion. It might have suggested to him, Mr. Alfred,
that our life is not too easy, perhaps; that, taken altogether,

PART THE THIRD 323

it will bear any little smoothing we can give it; but Mr.
Craggs was a man who could endure to be convinced, Sir.
He was always open to conviction. If he were open to
conviction now, I—this is weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, my
dear,’’—at this summons that lady appeared from behind
the door,—‘“‘ you are among old friends.”

Mrs. Snitchey, having delivered her congratulations,
took her husband aside.

“One moment, Mr. Snitchey,’’ said that lady. “ It
is not in my nature te rake up the ashes of the departed.”

““No, my dear,” returned her husband.

“ Mr. Craggs is Ae

““ Yes, my dear, he is deceased,” said Mr. Snitchey.

“But I ask you if you recollect,’ pursued his wife,
“that evening of the ball. I only ask you that. If you
do, and if your memory has not entirely failed you, Mr.
Snitchey; and if you are not absolutely in your dotage;
I ask you to connect this time with that—to remember how
I begged and prayed you, on my knees Ag

“Upon your knees, my dear? ’”’ said Mr. Snitchey.

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, “and you
know it—to beware of that man—to observe his eye—and
now to tell me whether I was right, and whether at that
moment he knew secrets which he didn’t choose to tell.”

“Mrs. Snitchey,’” returned her husband, in her ear,
“Madam. Did you ever observe anything in my eye?”

“No,” said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. ‘“‘ Don’t flatter
yourself.”’

“‘ Because, Ma’am, that night,” he continued, twitching
her by the sleeve, “‘ it happens that we both knew secrets
which we didn’t choose to tell, and both knew just the same
professionally. And so the less you say about such things
the better, Mrs. Snitchey; and take this as a warning to have
wiser and more charitable eyes another time. Miss Marion,
I brought a friend of yours along with me. Here,
Mistress! ””

Poor Clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came slowly
in, escorted by her husband; the latter doleful with the
presentiment that, if she abandoned herself to grief, the
Nutmeg-Grater was done for.

““ Now, Mistress,’ said the lawyer, checking Marion as
she ran towards her, and interposing himself between them,
“‘what’s the matter with you?”

324 THE BATTLE OF LIFE

“The matter! ” cried poor Clemency.

When, looking up in wonder, and in indignant remon-
strance, and in the added emotion of a great roar from Mr.
Britain, and seeing that sweet face so well remembered
close before her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, screamed,
embraced her, held her fast, released her, fell on Mr. Snitchey
and embraced him (much to Mrs. Snitchey’s indignation), fell
on the Doctor and embraced him, fell on Mr. Britain and em-
braced him, and concluded by embracing herself, throwing
her apron over her head, and going into hysterics behind it.

A stranger had come into the orchard, after Mr. Snitchey,
and had remained apart, near the gate, without being ob-
served by any of the group; for they had little spare at-
tention to bestow, and that had been monopolised by the
ecstasies of Clemency. He did not appear to wish to be
observed, but stood alone, with downcast eyes; and there
was an air of dejection about him (though he was a gentle-
man of a gallant appearance) which the general happiness
rendered more remarkable.

None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however,
remarked him at all; but almost as soon as she espied him,
she was in conversation with him. Presently, going to
where Marion stood with Grace and her little namesake,
she whispered something in Marion’s ear, at which she
started, and appeared surprised; but soon recovering
from her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger,
in Aunt Martha’s company, and engaged in conversation
with him too.

“Mr. Britain,” said the lawyer, putting his hand in his
pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document, while
this was going on, ‘‘ I congratulate you. You are now the
whole and sole proprietor of that freehold tenement, at
present occupied and held by yourself as a licensed tavern,
or house of public entertainment, and commonly called or
known by the sign of the Nutmeg-Grater. Your wife lost
one house, through my client Mr. Michael Warden; and now
gains another. I shall have the pleasure of canvassing you
for the county, one of these fine mornings.”

“Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign
was altered, Sir?” asked Britain.

“Not in the least,” replied the lawyer.

“Then,” said Mr. Britain, handing him back the con-
veyance, “ just clap in the words, ‘and Thimble,’ will you

PART THE THIRD 325

be so good; and I'll have the two mottoes painted up in the
parlour, instead of my wife’s portrait.”

“And let me,” said a voice behind them; it was the
stranger’s—Michael Warden’s; “let me claim the benefit
of those inscriptions. Mr. Heathfield and Dr. Jeddler, I
might have deeply wronged you both. That I did not, is
no virtue of my own. I will not say that I am six years
wiser than I was, or better. But I have known, at any rate,
that term of self-reproach. I can urge no reason why you
should deal gently with me. I abused the hospitality of
this house; and learnt my own demerits, with a shame I
never have forgotten, yet with some profit too I would fain
hope, from one,’”’ he glanced at Marion, “ to whom I made
my humble supplication for forgiveness, when I knew her
merit and my deep unworthiness. In a few days I shall
quit this place forever. Jentreat your pardon. Do as you
would be done by! Forget and Forgive! ”’

TimeE—from whom I had the latter portion of this story,
and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaint-
ance of some five-and-thirty years’ duration—informed me,
leaning easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never
went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it
afresh, maintained a golden mean of hospitality, and had a
wife, the pride and honour of that country-side, whose name
was Marion. But as I have observed that Time confuses
facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his

authority.

THE HAUNTED MAN

AND

THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

THE HAUNTED MAN

AND

THE GHOST’S BARGAIN

CHAPTER I

THE GIFT BESTOWED

EVERYBODY said so.

Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says
must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong
as right. In the general experience, everybody has been
wrong so often, and it has taken in most instances such a
weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is
proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be
right; “‘ but fha?’s no rule,” as the ghost of Giles Scroggins
says in the ballad.

The dread word, Guost, recalls me.

Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The
extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they were
so far right. He did.

Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken
brilliant eye; his black attired figure, indefinably grim,
although well-knit and well-proportioned; his grizzled
hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed, about his face,—as if
he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for the
chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity,—but
might have said he looked like a haunted man?

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thought-
ful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always
and jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a
bygone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in
his mind, but might have said it was the manner of a
haunted man?

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep,

329

330 THE HAUNTED MAN

and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which
he seemed to set himself against and stop, but might have
said it was the voice of a haunted man?

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part
library and part laboratory,—for he was, as the world knew,
far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher
on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes
hung daily,—who that had seen him there, upon a winter
night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and
books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on
the wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes
raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the quaint
objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection
of glass vessels that held liquids), trembling at heart like
things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give
back their component parts to fire and vapour;—who that
had seen him then, his work done, and he pondering in his
chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin
mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have
said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too?

Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have
believed that everything about him took this haunted tone,
and that he lived on haunted ground?

His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like,—an old,
retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once a
brave edifice planted in an open place, but now the obsolete
whim of forgotten architects; smoke-age-and-weather-
darkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing of the
great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and
bricks; its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits
formed by the streets and buildings, which in course of time,
had been constructed above its heavy chimney stacks; its
old trees, insulted by the neighbouring smoke, which
deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the
weather very moody; its grass-plots, struggling with the
mildewed earth to be grass, or to win any show of compro-
mise; its silent pavements, unaccustomed to the tread of
feet, and even to the observation of eyes, except when
a stray face looked down from the upper world, wondering
what nook it was; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner,
where no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but where,
in compensation for the sun’s neglect, the snow would lie
for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east wind

THE GIFT BESTOWED 331

would spin like a huge humming-top, when in all other
places it was silent and still.

His dwelling, at its heart and core—within doors—at his
fire-side—was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong,
with its worm-eaten beams of wood in the ceiling, and its
sturdy floor shelving downward to the great oak chimney-
piece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the
town, yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; se quiet,
yet so thundering with echoes when a distant voice was
raised or a door was shut,—echoes, not confined to the many
low passages and empty rooms, but rumbling and grumbling
till they were stifled in the heavy air of the forgotten Crypt,
where the Norman arches were half-buried in the earth.

You should have seen him in his dwelling about twilight,
in the dead winter time.

When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the
going down of the blurred sun. When it was just so dark,
as that the forms of things were indistinct and big—but
not wholly lost. When sitters by the fire began to see wild
faces and figures, mountains and abysses, ambuscades and
armies, in the coals. When people in the streets bent down
their heads and ran before the weather. When those who
were obliged to meet it, were stopped at angry corners,
stung by wandering snowflakes alighting on the lashes of
their eyes,—which fell too sparingly, and were blown away
too quickly, to leave a trace upon the frozen ground. When
windows of private houses closed up tight and warm.
When lighted gas began to burst forth in the busy and the
quiet streets fast blackening otherwise. When stray
pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked down at the
glowing fires in kitchens and sharpened their sharp appetites
by sniffing up the fragrance of whole miles of dinners.

When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked
wearily on gloomy landscapes, rustling and shuddering in
the blast. When mariners at sea, outlying upon icy yards,
were tossed and swung above the howling ocean dreadfully.
When lighthouses, on rocks and headlines, showed solitary
and watchful; and benighted sea birds breasted on against
their ponderous lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers
of story-books, by the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim
Baba cut into quarters, hanging in the Robbers’ Cave, or
had some small misgivings that the fierce little old woman,
with the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the

332 THE HAUNTED MAN

merchant Abudah’s bedroom, might, one of these nights, be
found upon the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up
to bed.

When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight
died away from the ends of the avenues; and the trees,
arching overhead, were sullen and black. When, in parks
and woods, the high wet fern and sodden moss and beds of
fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost to view, in masses
of impenetrable shade. When mists arose from dyke, and
fen, and river. When lights in old halls and in cottage
windows, were a cheerful sight. When the mill stopped,
the wheelwright and the blacksmith shut their workshops,
the turn-pike gate closed, the plough and harrow were left
lonely in the fields, the labourer and team went home, and
the striking of the church clock had a deeper sound than at
noon, and the churchyard wicket would be swung no more
that night.

When twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned
up all day that now closed in and gathered like mustering
swarms of ghosts. When they stood lowering, in corners of
rooms, and frowned out from behind half-opened doors.
When they had full possession of unoccupied apartments.
When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings
of inhabited chambers, while the fire was low, and withdrew
like ebbing waters when it sprung into a blaze. When they
fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects,
making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a monster,
the wondering child half-scared and half-amused, a stranger
to itself,—the very tongs upon the Learth, a straddling
giant with his arms akimbo, evidently smelling the blood of
Ienglishmen, and wanting to grind people’s bones to make
his bread.

When these shadows brought into the minds of older
people, other thoughts, and showed them different images.
When they stole from their retreats, in the likenesses of
forms and faces from the past, from the grave, from the
deep, deep, gulf where the things that might have been,
and never were, are always wandering.

When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire.
When, as it rose and fell, the shadows went and came.
When he took no heed of them, with his bodily eyes; but,
let them come or let them go, looked fixedly at the fire.
You should have seen him. then.

THE GIFT BESTOWED 333

When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and
come out of their lurking places at the twilight summons,
seemed to make a deeper stillness all about him. When the
wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes crooning,
sometimes howling, in the house. When the old trees out-
side were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook
unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy,
high-up “‘Caw!’”’ When at intervals, the window trembled,
the rusty vane upon the turret-top complained, the clock
beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour was
gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle.

—When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was
sitting so, and roused him.

“ Who's that?” said he, “ Come int”

Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back of
his chair, no face looking over it. It is certain that no
gliding footstep touched the door, as he lifted up his head
with a start, and spoke. And yet there was no mirror in the
room on whose surface his own form could have cast its
shadow for a moment; and Something had passed darkly
and gone!

“Tm humbly fearful, sir,” said a fresh-coloured busy
man, holding the door open with his foot for the admission
of himself and a wooden tray he carried, and letting it go
again by very gentle and careful degrees, when he and the
tray had got in, lest it should close noisily, “that it’s a
good bit past the time to-night. But Mrs. William has
been taken off her legs so often—”

“By the wind? Ay! I have heard it rising.”

««__By the wind, sir—that it’s a mercy she got home at
all. Ohdear, yes. Yes. It was by the wind, Mr. Redlaw.
By the wind.”

He had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, and
was employed in lighting the lamp, and spreading a cloth
on the table. From this employment he desisted in a hurry,
to stir and feed the fire, and then resumed it; the lamp he
had lighted, and the blaze that rose under his hand, so
quickly changing the appearance of the room, that it
seemed as if the mere coming in of his fresh red face and
active manner had made the pleasant alteration.

“Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, to be
taken off her balance by the elements. She is not formed
superior to that.”

334 THE HAUNTED MAN

“No,” returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though
abruptly.

“No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance
by Earth; as for example, last Sunday week, when sloppy
and greasy, and she going out to tea with her newest sister-
in-law, and having a pride in herself, and wishing to appear
perfectly spotless though pedestrian. Mrs. William may
be taken off her balance by Air; as being once overpersuaded
by a friend to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on
her constitution instantly like a steam-boat. Mrs. William
may be taken off her balance by Fire; as on a False alarm
of engines at her mother’s when she went two miles in her
nightcap. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by
Water; as at Battersea, when rowed into the piers by her
young nephew, Charley Swidger junior, aged twelve, which
had no idea of boats whatever. But these are elements.
Mrs. Wiliam must be taken out of elements for the strength
of her character to come into play.”

As he stopped for a reply, the reply was “‘ Yes,” in the
same tone as before.

““Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes!” said Mr. Swidger, still
proceeding with his preparations, and checking them off
as he made them. ‘“ That’s where it is, sir. That’s what
I always say myself, sir. Such a many of us Swidgers!—
Pepper. Why, there’s my father, sir, superannuated
keeper and custodian of this Institution, eigh-ty-seven year
old. He’s a Swidger!—Spoon.”

“True, William,” was the patient and abstracted
answer when he stopped again.

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swidger. “ That’s what I always
say, sir. You may call him the trunk of the tree!—Bread.
Then you come to his successor, my unworthy self—Salt—
and Mrs. William, Swidgers both.—Knife and fork. Then
you come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers,
man and woman, boy and girl. Why, what with cousins,
uncles, aunts, and relationships of this, that, and t’other
degree, and what-not degree, and marriages, and lyings-in,
the Swidgers—Tumbler—might take hold of hands, and
make a ring round England! ”

Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful
man whom he addressed, Mr. William approached him
nearer, and made a feint of accidentally knocking the
table with a decanter, to rouse him. The moment he

THE GIFT BESTOWED 335

succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiesc-
ence.

“Yes, sir! That’s just what I say myself, sir, Mrs.
William and me have often said so. ‘ There’s Swidgers
enough,’ we say, ‘ without our voluntary contributions ’—
Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himself—
Castors—to take care of; and it happens all for the best
that we have no child of our own, though it’s made Mrs.
William rather quiet-like, too. Quite ready for the fowl
and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs. William said she’d dish in
ten minutes when I left the Lodge.”

“IT am quite ready,” said the other, waking as from a
dream, and walking slowly to and fro.

“Mrs. William has been at it again, sir! ’’ said the
keeper, as he stood warming a plate at the fire, and pre-
sently shading his face with it. Mr. Redlaw stopped in his
walking, and an expression of interest appeared in him.

“What I always say myself, sir. Shewilldoit. There’s
a motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and
will have vent.”

““ What has she done? ”

“Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to
all the young gentlemen that come up from a wariety of
parts, to attend your courses of lectures at this ancient
foundation—it’s surprising how stone-chaney catches the
heat, this frosty weather, to be sure!’’ Here he turned the
plate, and cooled his fingers.

“ Well? ” said Mr. Redlaw.

“ That’s just what I say myself, sir,” returned Mr.
William, speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready and
delighted assent. ‘‘ That’s exactly where it is, sir! There
ain’t one of our students but appears to regard Mrs. William
in that light. Every day, right through the course, they
puts their heads into the Lodge, one after another, and have
all got something to tell her, or something to ask her.
‘ Swidge’ is the appellation by which they speak of Mrs.
William in general, among themselves, I’m told; but that’s
what I say, sir. Better be called ever so far out of your
name, if it’s done in real liking, than have it made ever so
much of, and not cared about! - What’s a name for? To
know a person by. If Mrs. William is known by something
better than her name—lI allude to Mrs. William’s qualities
and disposition—never mind her name, though it is Swidger,

33u THE HAUNTED MAN

by rights. Let ’em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge—Lord!
London Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo,
or Hammersmith Suspension—if they like!”

The close of this triumphant oration brought him and the
plate to the table, upon which he half laid and half dropped
it, with a lively sense of its being thoroughly heated, just as
the subject of his praises entered the room, bearing another
tray and a lantern, and followed by a venerable old man
with long grey hair.

Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-
looking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red
of her husband’s official waistcoat was very pleasantly
repeated. But whereas Mr. William’s light hair stood on
end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it
in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark
brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down,
and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact
and quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. William’s
very trousers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it
were not in their iron-grey nature to rest without looking
about them, Mrs. William’s neatly-flowered skirts—red and
white, like her own pretty face—were as composed and
orderly, as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors
could not disturb one of their folds. Whereas his coat had
something of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the
collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid and neat,
that there should have been protection for her, in it, had she
needed any, with the roughest people. Who could have
had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief,
or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame!
To whom would its repose and peace have not appealed
against disturbance, like the innocent slumber of a child!

“ Punctual, of ‘course, Milly,” said her husband, relieving
her of the tray, “or it wouldn’t be you. Here’s Mrs.
William, sir!—He looks lonelier than ever to-night,” whisper-
ing to his wife, as he was taking the tray, “‘ and ghostlier
altogether.”

Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of
herself even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes
she had brought upon the table,—Mr. William, after much
clattering and running about, having only gained possession

of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready to
serve.

THE GIFT BESTOWED 337

“‘ What is that the old man has in his arms? ” asked Mr.
Redlaw, as he sat down to his solitary meal.

“ Holly, sir,” replied the quiet voice of Milly.

“ That’s what I say myself, sir,” interposed Mr. William,
striking in with the butter-boat. “ Berries is so seasonable
to the time of year!—Brown gravy! ”

“‘ Another Christmas come, another year gone! ” mur-
mured the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. ‘“‘ More figures
in the lengthening sum of recollection that we work and work
at to our torment, till Death idly jumbles altogether, and
rubs all out. So, Philip! ”’ breaking off, and raising his voice
as he addressed the old man standing apart, with his glisten-
ing burden in his arms, from which the quiet Mrs. William
took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with
her scissors, and decorated the room with, while her
aged father-in-law looked on much interested in the
ceremony.

““My duty to you, sir,” returned the old man. ‘“ Should
have spoke before, sir, but know your ways, Mr. Redlaw—
proud to say—and wait till spoke to! Merry Christmas, sir,
and happy New Year, and many of’em. Have hada pretty
many of ’em myself—ha, ha!l—and may take the liberty
of wishing ’em I’m eighty-seven! ”

““ Have you had so many that were merry and happy? ”
asked the other.

“« Ay, sir, ever so many,” returned the old man.

“Ts his memory impaired with age? It is to be ex-
pected now,” said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and
speaking lower.

“ Not a morsel of it, sir,’”’ replied Mr. William. ‘ That’s
exactly what I say myself, sir. There never was such a
memory as my father’s. He’s the most wonderful man in
the world. He don’t know what forgetting means. It’s
the very observation I’m always making to Mrs. William,
sir, if you’ll believe me! ”

Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce at
all events, delivered this as if there were no iota of contra-
diction in it, and it were all said in unbounded and un-
qualified assent.

The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the
table, walked across the room to where the old man stood
looking at a little sprig of holly in his hand.

“ Tt recalls the time when many of those years were old

338 THE HAUNTED MAN

and new, then?” he said, observing him attentively, and
touching him on the shoulder. ‘“* Does it?”

“Oh many, many! ” said Philip, half awaking from hi:
reverie. ‘‘ I’m eighty-seven! ”

“‘ Merry and happy, was it? ” asked the Chemist, in a lov
voice. ‘‘ Merry and happy, old man?”

““ May-be as high as that, no higher,” said the old man.
holding out his hand a little way above the level of his knee
and looking retrospectively at his questioner, “‘ when I first
remember ’em! Cold, sunshiny day it was, out a-walking.
when someone—it was my mother as sure as you stand there,
though I don’t know what her blessed face was like, for she
took ill and died that Christmas-time—told me they were
food for birds. The pretty little fellow thought—that’s
me, you understand—that birds’ eyes were so bright,
perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the winter
were so bright. I recollect that. And I’m eighty-seven! ”

“Merry and happy! ‘*’ mused the other, bending his
dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of com-
passion. ‘‘ Merry and happy—and remember well!”

“* Ay, ay, ay!’’ resumed the old man, catching the last
words. ‘‘ Iremember ’em well in my school time, year after
year, and all the merry-making that used to come along with
them. Iwasa strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if you’ll
believe me, hadn’t my match at foot-ball within ten mile.
Where’s my son, William? Hadn’t my match at foot-ball,
William, within ten mile! ”

“'That’s what I always say, father! ’’ returned the son
promptly, and with great respect. ‘‘ You are a Swidger,
if ever there was one of the family! ’’

“Dear! ”’ said the old man, shaking his head as he again
looked at the holly. ‘‘ His mother—my son William’s
my youngest son—and I have sat among ’em all, boys and
girls, little children and babies, many a year, when the
berries like these were not shining half so bright all round us
as their bright faces. Many of ’em are gone; she’s gone;
and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more than
all the rest!) is fallen very low; but I can see them, when I
look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those
days; and I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. It’s
a blessed thing to me, at eighty-seven.” -

The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so
much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground.

THE GIFT BESTOWED 339

“When my circumstances got to be not so good as
formerly, through not being honestly dealt by, and I first come
here to be custodian,” said the old man, “‘ —which was up-
wards of fifty years ago—where’s my son William? More
than half a century ago, William! ”

“That’s what I say, father,” replied the son, as promptly
and dutifully as before, “ that’s exactly where it is. Two
limes ought’s an ought, and twice five ten, and there’s an
hundred of ’em.”’

“Tt was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders
—or more correctly speaking,” said the old man, with a
great glory in his subject and his knowledge of it, “‘ one of the
learned gentlemen that helped endow us in Queen Elizabeth’s
time, for we were founded afore her day—left in his will,
among other bequests he made us, so much to buy holly, for
garnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas. There
was something homely and friendly init. Being but strange
here, then coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for
his very picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently,
afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual
stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.—A sedate gentle-
man in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a
scroll below him in old English letters, ‘Lord! keep my
memory green!’ You know all about him, Mr. Redlaw? ”

“‘T know the portrait hangs there, Philip.”

“Yes, sure, it’s the second on theright, above the panelling.
I was going to say—he has helped to keep my memory green,
I thank him; for, going round the building every year, as
I’m a-doing now, and freshening up the bare rooms with
these branches and berries, freshens up my bare old brain.
One year brings back asiother, and that year another, and
those others numbers! At last, it seems to me as if the
birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time of all I have ever
had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in,—and
they’re a pretty many, for I’m eighty-seven! ”

“‘ Merry and happy,” murmured Redlaw to himself.

The room began to darken strangely.

“So you see, sir,’ pursued old Philip, whose hale
wintry cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose
blue eyes had brightened while he spoke, “ I have plenty
to keep, when I keep this present season. Now, where’s
my quiet Mouse! Chattering’s the sin of my time of life,
and there’s half the building to do yet, if the cold don’t

340 THE HAUNTED MAN

freeze us first, or the wind don’t blow us away, or the dark-
ness don’t swallow us up.”

The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side,
and silently taken his arm, before he finished speaking.

“Come away, my dear,” said the old man. “ Mr
Redlaw won’t settle to his dinner, otherwise, till it’s cold as
the winter. I hope you’ll excuse me rambling on, sir, and I
wish you good-night, and, once again, a merry—”

“Stay,” said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the
table, more, it would have seemed from his manner, to re-
assure the old keeper, than in any remembrance of his own
appetite, ‘‘ Spare me another moment, Philip. William,
you were going to tell me something to your excellent wife’s
honour. It will not be disagreeable to her to hear you praise
her. What was it?”

‘“ Why, that’s where it is you see, sir,” returned Mr.
William Swidger, looking towards his wife in considerable
embarrassment. ‘‘ Mrs. William’s got her eye upon me.”

“But you’re not afraid of Mrs. William’s eye! ”’

““ Why, no, sir,’’ returned Mr. Swidger, ‘‘ that’s what I
say myself. ' It wasn’t made to be afraid of. It wouldn't
have been made so mild, if that was the intention. But I
wouldn’t like to—Milly!—him, you know. Down in the
Buildings.”

Mr. William, standing behind the table, and rammaging
disconcertedly among the objects upon it, directed persuasive
glances at Mrs. William, and secret jerks of his head and
thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her towards him.

“ Him, you know, my love,”’ said Mr. William. ‘‘ Down
in the Buildings. Tell, my dear! You're the works of
Shakespeare in comparison with myself. Down in the
Buildings, you know, my love.—Student.”

“Student? ’’ repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head.

“That’s what I say, sir!” cried Mr. William, in the
utmost animation of assent. ‘ If it wasn’t the poor student
down in the Buildings, why should you wish to hear it from
Mrs. William’s lips? Mrs. William, my dear—Buildings.”

“I didn’t know,” said Milly, with a quiet frankness,
free from any haste or confusion, “ that William had said
anything about it, or I wouldn’t have come. I asked him
not to. It's a sick young gentleman, sir—and very poor I
am afraid—who is too ill te go home this holiday-time,
and lives, unknown to anyone, in but a common kind of

THE GIFT BESTOWED 341

lodging for a gentleman, down in Jerusalem Buildings.
That's all, sir.’”

“Why have I never heard of him? ” said the Chemist,
rising hurriedly. ‘‘ Why has he not made his situation
known to me? Sick!—give me my hat and cloak. Poor!
—what house?—what number? ”

“ Oh, you mustn’t go there, sir,” said Milly, leaving her
father-in-law, and calmly confronting him with her collected
little face and folded hands.

“Not go there?”

“ Oh dear, no!” said Milly, shaking her head as at a
most manifest and self-evident impossibility. ‘‘ It couldn’t
be thought of?’’

“What do you mean? Why not?”

““Why you see, sir,” said Mr. William Swidger, per-
suasively and confidentially, “ that’s what I say. Depend
upon it, the young gentleman would never have made his
situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs. William has
got into his confidence, but that’s quite different. They all
confide in Mrs. William; they all trust her. A man, sir,
couldn’t have got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir,
and Mrs. William combined—! ”

“There is good sense and delicacy in what you say,
William,’’ returned Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle
and composed face at his shoulder. And laying his finger
on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand.

“Oh dear no, sir!” cried Milly, giving it back again.
*“* Worse and worse! Couldn’t be dreamed of!”

Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so
unruffled by the momentary haste of this rejection, that an
instant afterwards, she was tidily picking up a few leaves
which had strayed from between her scissors and her apron,
when she had arranged the holly.

Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that
Mr. Redlaw was still regarding her with doubt and astonish-
ment, she quietly repeated—looking about the while, for
any other fragments that might have escaped her observa-
tion:

‘* Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would
not be known to you, or receive help from you—though he
is a student in your class. I have made no terms of secrecy
with you, but I trust to your bonour completely.”

“Why did he say so? ”

342 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ Indeed I can’t tell, sir,’ said Milly, after thinking a
little, “‘ because I am not at all clever, you know; and I
wanted to be useful to him in making things neat and com-
fortable about him, and employed myself that way. But
I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow
neglected too.—How dark it is?”

The room had darkened more and more. There was a
heavy gloom and shadow gathering behind the Chemist’s
chair.

“What more about him?” he asked.

“He is engaged to be married when he can afford it,”
said Milly, ‘‘ and is studying, I think, to qualify himself
to earn a living. I have seen, a long time, that he has
studied hard and denied himself much.—How very dark it
ists

“It’s turned colder too,”’ said the old man, rubbing his
hands. ‘“ There’s a chill and dismal feeling in the room.
Where’s my son William? William, my boy, turn the lamp,
and rouse the fire! ”’

Milly’s voice resumed, like quiet music very softly
played:

“He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon.
after talking to me”’ (this was to herself) ‘‘ about someone
dead, and some great wrong done that could never be
forgotten; but whether to him or to another person, I
don’t know. Not by him, I am sure.”

“And, in short, Mrs. William, you see—which she
wouldn't say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till
the new year after this next one—” said Mr. William,
coming up to him to speak in his ear, “has done him
worlds of good! Pless you, worlds of good! All at home
just the same as ever—my father made as snug and com-
fortable—nol a crumb of litter to be found in the house,
if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for it—Mrs.
William apparently never out of the way—Yet Mrs. William
backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up and
down, up and down, a mother to him! ”

The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and
shadow gathering behind the chair was heavier.

“ Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds,
this very night, when she was coming home (why it’s not a
couple of hours ago), a creature more like a young wild
beast than a young child, shivering upon a door-step.

THE GIFT BESTOWED 343

What does Mrs. William do, but brings it home to dry it,
and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and
flannel is given away, on Christmas morning! If it ever felt
a fire before, it’s as much as ever it did; for it’s sitting in the
old Lodge chimney, staring at ours as if its ravenous eyes
would never shut again. It’s sitting there, at least,’”’ said
Mr. William, correcting himself, on reflection, “ unless it’s
bolted! ”

“Heaven keep her happy!” said the Chemist aloud,
“and you too, Philip! and you, William! I must consider
what to do in this. I may desire to see this student, I’ll
not detain you longer now. Good-night! ”

““T thank’ee, sir, I thank’ee! ” said the old man, “ for ~
Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. Where’s
my son William? William, you take the lantern and go on
first, through them long dark passages, as you did last year
and the year afore. Ha ha! J remember—though I’m
eighty-seven! ‘Lord keep my memory green!’ It’s a
very good prayer, Mr. Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman
in the peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck—hangs
up, second on the right above the panelling, in what used to
be, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great
Dinner Hall. ‘Lord keep my memory green!’ It’s very
good and pious, sir. Amen! Amen!”

As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which,
however carefully withheld, fired a long train of thundering
reverberations when it shut at last, the room turned darker.

As he fell a-musing in his chair alone, the healthy holly
withered on the wall, and dropped—dead branches.

As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that
place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow
degrees,—or out of it there came, by some unreal, unsub-
stantial process—not to be traced by any human sense,—
an awful likeness of himself.

Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and hands,
but with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled
hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress, it came
into his terrible appearance of existence, motionless, without
asound. As he leaned his arm upon the elbow of his chair,
ruminating before the fire, if leaned upon the chair-back,
close above him, with its appalling copy of his face looking
where his face looked, and bearing the expression bis face

bore.

344 THE HAUNTED MAN

This, then, was the Something that had passed and gone
already. This was the dread companion of the haunted
man!

It took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of
him, than he of it. The Christmas Waits were playing
somewhere in the distance, and, through his thoughtfulness,
he seemed to listen to the music. It seemed to listen too.

At length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his
face.

“ Here again! ” he said.

“ Here again! ”’ replied the Phantom.

‘ T see you in the fire,’’ said the haunted man; “ I hear
you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night.”

The Phantom moved its head, assenting.

““ Why do you come, to haunt me thus? ”’

“*T come as I am called,” replied the Ghost.

““No. Unbidden,”’ exclaimed the Chemist.

“ Unbidden be it,’”’ said the Spectre. ‘“‘ It isenough. I
am here.”

Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two faces
—if the dread lineaments behind the chair might be called a
face—both addressed towards it, as at first, and neither
looking at the other. But, now, the haunted man turned,
suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. The Ghost, as
sudden in its motion, passed to before the chair, and stared
on him.

‘The living man, and the animated image of himself dead,
might so have looked, the one upon the other. An awful
survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty old pile of
building, on a winter night, with a loud wind going by upon
its journey of mystery—whence, or whither, no man know-
ing since the world began—and the stars, in unimaginable
millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where
the world’s bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy.

“Look upon me!” said the Spectre. ‘I am he ne-
glected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and
suffered, and still strove and suffered, until I hewed out
knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and made
rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise on,”

“Tam that man,’”’ returned the Chemist.

“No mother’s self-denying love,’ pursued the Phantom,
“no father’s council, aided me. A stranger came into my
father’s place when I was but a child, and I was easily an

THE GIFT BESTOWED 345

alien from my mother’s heart. My parents, at the best,
were of that sort, whose care soon ends, and whose duty is
soon done; who cast their offspring loose, carly, as birds do
theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the
pity.”

It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its
look, and with the manner of its speech, and with its smile.

“JT am he,’ pursued the Phantom, ‘ who, in this
struggle upward, found a friend. I made him—won him—
bound him to me; We worked together, side by side. All
the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had had
no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him.”

“ Not all,” said Redlaw, hoarsely.

“No, not all,” returned the Phantom. “ I had a sister.”

The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands,
replied “‘ I had!’”’ The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew
closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its folded hands,
its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into his
face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with fire,
went on:

*« Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known,
had streamed from her. How young she was, how fair,
how loving! I took her to the first poor roof that I was
master of, and made it rich. She came into the darkness
of my life, and made it bright.—She is before me! ”

** T saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in
the wind, in the dead stillness of the night,’’ returned the
haunted man.

“« Did he love her? ” said the Phantom, echoing his con-
templative tone. ‘‘ I think he did once. Jam sure he did.
Better had she loved him less—less secretly, less dearly,
from the shallower depths of a more divided heart!”

“‘Let me forget it,’’ said the Chemist, with an angry
motion of his hand. ‘ Let me blot it from my memory!”

The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking,
crucl eyes still fixed upon his face, went on:

“ A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life.”

““Tt did,’ said Redlaw.

“A love, as like hers,” pursued the Phantom, “ as my
inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. 1 was
too poor to bind its object to my fortune then, by any thread
of promise or enireaty. I loved her far too well, to seek te
do it. But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I strove

346 THE HAUNTED MAN

to climb! Only an inch gained, brought me something
nearer to the height. I toiled up! In the late pauses of
my labour at that time—my sister (sweet companion!) still
sharing with me the expiring embers and the cooling hearth,—
when day was breaking, what pictures of the future did I see!”

“T saw them, in the fire, but now,’ he murmured.
“They come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead
stillness of the night, in the revolving years.”

“__ Pictures of my own domestic life, in after-time with
her who was the inspiration of my toil. Pictures of my
sister, made the wife of my dear friend, on equal terms—
for he had some inheritance, we none—pictures of our
sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden links,
extending back so far, that should bind us, and our children,
in a radiant garland,” said the Phantom.

** Pictures,’’ said the haunted man, “‘ that were delusions.
Why is it my doom to remember them too well! ”

“Delusions,” echoed the Phantom in its changeless
voice, and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. ‘ For
my friend (in whose breast my confidence was locked as in
my own), passing between me and the centre of the system
of my hopes and struggles, won her to himself, and shattered
my frail universe. My sister, doubly dear, doubly devoted,
doubly cheerful in my home, lived on to see me famous, and
my old ambition so rewarded, when its spring was broken,
and then—”’

“Then died,’ he interposed. ‘‘ Died, gentle as ever,
happy, and with no concern but for her brother. Peace! ”’

The Phantom watched him silently.

“ Remembered! ”’ said the haunted man, after a pause.
“Yes. So well remembered, that even now, when years
have passed, and nothing is more idle or more visionary to
me than the boyish love so long outlived, I think of it with
sympathy, as if it were a younger brother’s or a son's.
Sometimes I even wonder when her heart first inclined to
him, and how it had been affected towards me.—Not
lightly, once, I think.—But that is nothing. Early un-
happiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and a
loss that nothing can replace, outlive such fancies.”

“Thus,” said the Phantom, “I bear within me a
Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I pray upon myself. Thus,
memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and
my wrong, I would!”

THE GIFT BESTOWED 347

“Mocker!”’ said the Chemist, leaping up, and making,
with a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. “ Why
have I always that taunt in my ear? ”’

“ Forbear! ’”’ exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice.
“ Lay a hand on me, and die! ”’

He stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed him,
and stood looking on it. It had glided from him; it had
its arm raised high in warning; and a smile passed over its
unearthly features as it reared its dark figure in triumph.

“If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would,” the
Ghost repeated. “If I could forget my sorrow and wrong,
I would! ”

“ Evil spirit of myself,’’ returned the haunted man, in a
low, trembling tone, “‘ my life is darkened by that incessant
whisper.”

“ Tt is an echo,’”’ said the Phantom.

“Tf it be an echo of my thoughts—as now, indeed, I
know it is,’’ rejoined the haunted man, ‘“‘ why should I,
therefore, be tormented? It is not a selfish thought. I
suffered it to range beyond myself. All men and women
have their sorrows,—most of them their wrongs; ingratitude
and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of
life. Who would not forget their sorrows and their
wrongs? ”’

““ Who would not, truly, and be the happier and better
for it? ’”’ said the Phantom.

“ These revolutions of years, which we commemorate,”
proceeded Redlaw, “‘ what do they recall! Are there any
minds in which they do not re-awaken some sorrow, or
some trouble? What is the remembrance of the old man
who was here to-night? A tissue of sorrow and trouble.”

“ But common natures,’ said the Phantom, with its evil
smile upon its glassy face, “‘ unenlightened minds and
ordinary spirits, do not feel or reason on these things like
men of higher cultivation and profounder thought.”

“Tempter,” answered Redlaw, ‘‘ whose hollow look and
voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom
some dim foreshadowing of greater fear is stealing over me
while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own mind.”

“ Receive it as a proof that I am powerful,” returned the
Ghost. ‘‘ Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, wrong,
and trouble you have known! ”

“ Forget them!” he repeated.

348 THE HAUNTED MAN

“T have the power to cancel their remembrance—to
leave but very faint, confused traces of them, that will die
out soon,” returned the Spectre. ‘Say! It is done?”

“Stay!” cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified
gesture the uplifted hand. “I tremble with distrust and
doubt of you; and the dim fear you cast upon me deepens
into a nameless horror I can hardly bear.—I would not
deprive myself of any kindly recollection, or any sympathy
that is good for me, or others. What shall I lose if I assent
to this? What else will pass from my remembrance? ”

““No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the
intertwisted chain of feelings and associations, each in its
turn dependent on, and nourished by, the banished re-
collections. Those will go.”

“* Are they so many? ” said the haunted man, reflecting
in alarm.

“They have been wont to show themselves in the fire,
in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in
the revolving years,” returned the Phantom scornfully.

“In nothing else? ”’

The Phantom held its peace.

But, having stood before him, silent, for a little while,
it moved towards the fire; then stopped.

“Decide! ”’ it said, ‘‘ before the opportunity is lost! ”

“A moment! I call Heaven to witness,’ said the
agitated man, “ that I have never been a hater of my kind,
—never morose, indifferent, or hard, to anything around
me. If, living here alone, I have made too much of all
that was and might have been, and too little of what is,
the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on others. But,
if there were poison in my body, should I not, possessed of
antidotes and knowledge how to use them, use them? If
there be poison in my mind, and through this fearful
shadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it out? ”’

“ Say,” said the Spectre, ‘‘ is it done? ”’

“A moment longer!’”’ he answered hurriedly. “ J
would forget it if Icould! Wave J thought that, alone, or
has it been the thought of thousands upon thousands,
generation after generation? All human memory is fraught
with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the memory of
other men, but other men have not this choice. Yes, I close

the bargain. Yes! I wiix forget my sorrow, wrong, and
trouble! ”

THE GIFT BESTOWED 349

“ Say,” said the Spectre, “‘ is it done? ”

“ It is!

“Iris. And take this with you, man whom I here re-
nounce! The gift that I have given, you shall give again,
go where you will. Without recovering yourself the power
that you have yielded up, you shall henceforth destroy its
like in all whom you approach. Your wisdom has dis-
covered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is
the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the
happier, in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its
benefactor! Freed from such remembrance from this
hour, carry involuntarily the blessing of such freedom with
you. Its diffusion is inseparable and inalienable from you.
Go! Be happy in the good you have won, and in the good
you do!”

The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above
him while it spoke, as if in some unholy invocation, or
some ban; and which had gradually advanced its eyes so
close to his, that he could see how they did not participate
in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed, un-
alterable, steady horror; melted before him and was gone.

As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and
wonder, and imagining he heard repeated in melancholy
echoes, dying away fainter and fainter, the words, “‘ Destroy
its like in all whom you approach! ”’ a shrill cry reached his
ears. It came, not from the passage beyond the door, but
from another part of the old building, and sounded like
the cry of someone in the dark who had lost the way.

He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if to
be assured of his identity, and shouted in reply, loudly and
wildly; for there was a strangeness and terror upon him, as if
he too were lost.

The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up the
lamp, and raised a heavy curtain in the wall, by which he
was accustomed to pass into and out of the theatre where
he lectured,—which adjoined his room. Associated with
youth and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces
which his entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a
ghostly place when all this life was faded out of it, and stared
upon him like an emblem of Death.

“ Halloa!’’ he cried. ‘“‘ Halloa! This way! Come to
the light!” When, as he held the curtain with one hand,
and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce the

350 THE HAUNTED MAN

gloom that filled the place, something rushed past him
into the room like a wild-cat, and crouched down in a
corner.

““ What is it?” he said, hastily.

He might have asked “‘ What is it?” even had he seen
it well, as presently he did when he stood looking at it
gathered up in its corner.

A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and
form almost an infant’s, but, in its greedy, desperate little
clutch, a bad old man’s. <A face rounded and smoothed by
some half-dozen years, but pinched and twisted by the ex-
periences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youthful. Naked
feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy,—ugly in the
blood and dirt that cracked upon them. A baby savage,
a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a
creature who might live to take the outward form of man,
but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast.

Used, already, to be worried and haunted like a beast,
the boy crouched down as he was looked at, and looked back
again, and interposed his arm to ward off the expected blow.

‘“ Tl bite,” he said, ‘‘ if you hit me! ”

The time had been, and not many minutes since, when
such a sight as this would have wrung the Chemist’s heart.
He looked upon it now, coldly; but, with a heavy effort, to
remember something—he did not know what—he asked
the boy what he did there, and whence he came.

“Where's the woman? ”’ hereplied. ‘‘ I want to find the
woman.”

“Who? ” f

“The woman. Her that brought me here, and set me
by the large fire. She was so long gone, that I went to look
for her, and lost myself. I don’t want you. I want the
woman.”

He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the
dull sound of his naked feet upon the floor was near the
curtain, when Redlaw caught him by the rags.

“Come! you let me go! ’’ muttered the boy, struggling,
and clenching his teeth. ‘“ I’ve done nothing to you. Let
me go, will you, to the woman!” *

“This is not the way. There is a nearer one,” said
Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to re-
member some association that ought, of right, to bear upon
this monstrous object. ‘‘ What is your name? ”

THE GIFT BESTOWED 351

“ Got none.”

“Where do you live? ”

“Live! What’s that?”

The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for
a moment, and then, twisting round his legs and wrestling
with him, broke again into his repetition of ‘‘ You let me go,
will you? I want to find the woman.”

The Chemist led him to the door. “ This way,” he said,
looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and
avoidance, growing out of his coldness. “ I’ll take you to
her.”

The sharp eyes in the child’s head, wandering round the
room, lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner
were.

“ Give me some of that? ” he said covetously.

“ Has she not fed you? ”’

“ T shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha’n’t I? Ain’t I
hungry every day? ”

Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like
small animal of prey, and hugging to his breast bread and
meat, and his own rags, all together, said:

“There! Now take me to the woman! ”

As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him,
sternly motioned him to follow, and was going out of the
door, he trembled and stopped.

“The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go
where you will! ”

The phantom’s words were blgwing in the wind, and the
wind blew chill upon him.

“‘T’ll not go there, to-night,’”’” he murmured faintly.

“T’ll go nowhere to-night. Boy! straight down this
long-arched passage, and past the great dark door into the
yard,—you see the fire shining on the window there.”

“The woman’s fire?’ inquired the boy.

He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He
came back with his lamp, locked his door hastily, and sat
down in his chair, covering his face like one who was
frightened at himself.

For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone.

352 THE HAUNTED MAN

CHAPTER II

THE GIFT DIFFUSED

A SMALL man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a&
small shop by a small screen, pasted all over with small
scraps of newspapers. In company with the small man,
was almost any amount of small children you may please to
name—at least, it seemed so; they made, in that very
limited sphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of
action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers.

Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery,
been got into bed in a corner, where they might have reposed
snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, but for a con-
stitutional propensity to keep awake, and also to scuffle
in and out of bed. The immediate occasion of these pre-
datory dashes at the waking world, was the construction of
an oyster-shell wall in a corner, by two other youths of
tender age; on which fortification the two in bed made
harassing descents (like those accursed Picts and Scots who
beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons),
and then withdrew to their own territory.

In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and
the retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made
lunges at the bed-clothes, under which the marauders took
refuge, another little boy, in another little bed, contributed
his mite of confusion to the family stock, by casting his boots
upon the waters; in other words, by launching these and
several small objects inoffensive in themselves, though of a
hard substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers
of his repose,—who were not slow to return these compli-
ments.

Besides which, another little boy—the biggest there,
but still little—was tottering to and fro, bent on one side,
and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a
large baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains
sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep.
But oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and
watchfulness into which this baby’s eyes were then only

beginning to compose themselves to stare, over his
unconscious shoulder!

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 353

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar
the whole existence of this particular young brother was
offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to
have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for
five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when
required. ‘‘ Tetterby’s baby ”’ was as well known in the
neighbourhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved
from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny
Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles
who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up,
all on one side, a little too late for everything that was
attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday night.
Wherever childhood congregated to play, there was little
Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny
desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would
not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch
was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny
wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be
taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a
fauliless baby, without its peer in the realm of England; and
was quite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general
from behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and
to go staggering about with it like a very little porter with
a very large parcel, which was not directed to anybody, and
could never be delivered anywhere.

The small man who sat in the small parlour, making
fruitless attempts to read his newspaper peaceably in the
midst of this disturbance, was the father of the family, and
the chief of the firm described in the inscription over the
little shop front, by the name and title of A. Terrersy
AND Co., NEWSMEN. Indeed, strictly speaking, he was the
only personage answering to that designation; as Co.
was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether baseless and
impersonal.

Tetterby’s was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings.
There was a good show of literature in the window, chiefly
consisting of picture newspapers out of date, and serial
pirates, and footpads. Walking-sticks, likewise, and
marbles, were included in the stock in trade. It had once
extended into the light confectionery line; but it would
seem that those elegancies of life were not in demand about
Jerusalem Buildings, for nothing connected with that branch
of commerce remained in the window, except a sort of smal!

I2—M

354 THE HAUNTED MAN

glass lantern containing a languishing mass of bull’s-eyes,
which had melted in the summer and congealed in the
winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating
them without eating the lantern too, was gone for ever.
Tetterby’s had tried its hand at several things. It had once
made a feeble little dart at the toy-business; for, in another
Jantern, there was a heap of minute wax dolls, all sticking
together upside down, in the direst confusion, with their
feet on one another’s heads, and a precipitate of broken
arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a move in the
millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnet-shapes
remained in a corner of the window to attest. It had fancied
that a living might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and had
stuck up a representation of a native of each of the three
integral portions of the British empire, in the act of consum-
ing the fragrant weed; with a poetic legend attached,
importing that in one case they sat and joked, one chewed
tobacco, one took snuff, one smoked; but nothing seemed
to have come of it—except flies. Time had been when
it had put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for in one
pane of glass there was a card of cheap seals, and another of
pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of inscrutable
intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem
Buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby’s
had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem
Buildings in one way or other, and appeared to have done
so indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm was
too evidently Co.’s; Co., as a bodiless creation, being un-
troubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and
thirst, being chargeable neither to the poor’s-rates nor the
assessed taxes, and having no young family to provide for.

Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as
already mentioned, having the presence of a young family
impressed upon his mind in a manner too clamorous to be
disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of a news-
paper, laid down his paper, wheeled in his distraction a few
times round the parlour, like an undecided carrier-pigeon,
made an ineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures

in bedgowns that skimmed past him, and then, bearing

suddenly down upon the only unoffending member of the
family, boxed the ears of little Moloch’s nurse.

“You bad boy!” said Mr. Tetterby, ‘‘ haven’t you any
feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxieties

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 355

of a hard winter’s day, since five o’clock in the morning,
but must you wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelli-
gence with your wicious tricks? Isn’t it enough, sir, that
your brother ’Dolpbus is toiling and moiling in the fog and
cold, and you rolling in the lap of luxury with a—with a
baby, and everything you can wish for,” said Mr. Tetterby,
heaping this up as a great climax of blessings, “‘ but must you
make a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your parents?
Must you, Johnny? Hey?” At each interrogation Mr.
Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought
better of it, and held his hand.

“Oh, father!’ whimpered Johnny, ‘‘ when I wasn’t
doing anything I’m sure, but taking such care of Sally, and
getting her to sleep. Oh, father! ”

“ T wish my little woman would come home! ” said Mr.
Tetterby, relenting and repenting, “ I only wish my little
woman would come home! I ain’t fit to deal with ’em.
They make my head go round, and get the betterofme. Oh,
Johnny! Isn’t it enough that your dear mother has pro-
vided you with that sweet sister? ”’ indicating Moloch;
“isn’t it enough that you were seven boys before, without a
ray of a gal, and that your dear mother went through what
she did go through, on purpose that you might all of you
have a little sister, but must you behave yourself as to make
my head swim? ”

Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and
those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby
concluded by embracing him, and immediately breaking
away to catch one of the real delinquents. A reasonably
good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart
run, and some rather severe cross-country work under and
over the bedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of
the chairs, in capturing his infant, whom he condignly
punished and bore to bed. This example had a powerful,
and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots,
who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been,
but a moment before, broad awake, and in the highest
possible feather. Nor was it lost upon the two young
architects, who retired to bed, in an adjoining closet, with
great privacy and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted
One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr.
Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself un-
expectedly in a scene of peace.

356 THE HAUNTED MAN

be

“ My little woman herself,” said Mr. Tetterby, wiping
his flushed face, ‘‘ could hardly have done it better! I only
wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed!”

Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage
appropriate to be impressed upon his children’s minds on
the occasion, and read the following.

“ «Tt is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have
had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after
life as their best friends.’ Think of your own remarkable
mother, my boys,’ said Mr. Tetterby, “and know her
value while she is still among you!”’

He sat down in his chair by the fire, and composed him-
self, cross-legged, over his newspaper.

“‘Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed
again,” said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered
in a very soft-hearted manner, “‘ and astonishment will be
the portion of that respected contemporary! ”—which
expression Mr. Tetterby selected from hisscreen. ‘‘ Johnny,
my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for she’s
the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow.”

Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed
himself beneath the weight of Moloch.

* Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny! ”’ said his
father, “and how thankful you ought to be! ‘ It is not
generally known, Johnny,’’’ he was now referring to the
screen again, “‘‘ but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate
calculation, that the following immense percentage of
babies never attain to two years old; that is to say’ ”’—

““Oh don’t, father, please!’’ cried Johnny. “I can’t
bear it, when I think of Sally.”

Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profounder
sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister.

“Your brother ’Dolphus,” said his father, poking the
fire, “is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like a
lump of ice. What’s got your precious mother? ”

*‘ Tere’s mother, and ’Dolphus too, father! ” exclaimed
Johnny, ‘ I think.”

“You're right!” returned the father, listening. ‘ Yes,
that’s the footstep of my little woman.”

The process of induction, by which Mr. Tetterby had
come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman,
was his own secret. She would have made two editions of
himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, she was

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 357

rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but con-
sidered with reference to her husband, her dimensions be-
came magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing
proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her
seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally,
however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at last: as
nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed
and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day.

Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing and carried a
basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down
fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet charge to
her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and
gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master
Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his
Torso out of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable,
requested the same favour. Johnny having again complied,

-and again gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself,
Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the
same claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction of
this third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had
hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush him-
self again, and pant at his relations.

“Whatever you do, Johnny,’ said Mrs. Tetterby,
shaking her head, “ take care of her, or never look your
mother in the face again.”

“Nor your brother,” said Adolphus.

“Nor your father, Johnny,” added Mr. Tetterby.

Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation
of him, looked down at Moloch’s eyes to see that they were
all right so far, and skilfully patted her back (which was
uppermost), and rocked her with his foot.

“Are you wet, ’Dolphus, my boy?” said his father.
™ Come and take my chair, and dry yourself.”

“No, father, thank’ee,”’ said Adolphus, smoothing him-
self down with his hands. ‘ I an’t very wet, I don’t think.
Does my face shine much, father? ”

«Well, it does look waxy, my boy,” returned Mr. Tetterby.

“ It’s the weather, father,’’ said Adolphus, polishing his
cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. ‘‘ What with rain,
and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my face gets quite
brought out into a rash sometimes. And shines, it does,—
oh, don’t it though!”

Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life,

353 THE HAUNTED MAN

being employed by a more thriving firm than his father
and Co., to vend newspapers at a railway station, where
his chubby little person, like a shabbily disguised Cupid,
and his shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten
years old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the
locomotives, running in and out. His juvenility might have
been at some loss for a harmless outlet, in this early applica-
tion to traffic, but for a fortunate discovery he made of a
means of entertaining himself, and of dividing the long day
into stages of interest, without neglecting business. This
ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries,
for its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the
word “ paper,” and substituting, in its stead, at different
periods of the day, all the other vowels, in grammatical
succession. Thus, before daylight in the winter-time, he
went to and fro, in his little oilskin cap and cape, and his big
comforter, piercing the heavy air with his cry of “‘ Morn-ing
Pa-per!”’ which, about an hour before noon, changed to
**Morn-ing Pep-per!” which at about two, changed to
** Morn-ing Pip-per! ”? which, in a couple of hours, changed
to ‘* Morn-ing Pop-per! ”’ and so declined with the sun into
‘‘ Even-ing Pup-per!”’ to the great relief and comfort of
this young gentleman’s spirits.

Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting
with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid,
thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring round and round
upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her out-
of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper.

“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby.
“ That’s the way the world goes! ”

““ Which is the way the world goes, my dear?” asked
Mr. Tetterby, looking round.

“Oh, nothings ” said Mrs. Tetterby.

Mr. Tetlerby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper
afresh, and carried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it,
but was wandering in his attention, and not reading it.

Mrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but
rather as if she were punishing the table than preparing the
family supper; hitting it unnecessarily hard with the knives
and forks, slapping it with the plates, dinting it with the
salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it with the loaf.

‘Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby.
“ That’s the way the world goes! ””

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 359

“ My duck,” returned her husband, looking round again,
“you said that before. Which is the way the world goes? ”

“Oh, nothing! ” said Mrs. Tetterby.

“Sophia! ”” remonstrated her husband, “ you said that
before, too.”

“Well, I'll say it again, if you like,” returned Mrs.
Tetterby. “Oh nothing—there! And again if you like,
oh nothing—there! And again if you like, oh nothing—
now then!”

Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of
his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment:

“ My little woman, what has put you out? ”

“Tm sure I don’t know,” she retorted. ‘ Don’t ask
me. Who said I was put out at all? J never did.”

Mr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a
bad job, and taking a slow walk across the room, with his
hands behind him, and his shoulders raised—his gait
according perfectly with the resignation of his manner—
addressed himself to his two eldest offspring.

“Your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus,”’
said Mr. Tetterby. ‘ Your mother has been out in the wet
to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your
mother so todo. You shall get some supper too, very soon,
Johnny. Your mother’s pleased with you, my man, for
being so attentive to your precious sister.”

Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided
subsidence of her animosity towards the table, finished her
preparations, and took from her ample basket, a substantial
slab of hot pease pudding wrapped in paper, and a basin
covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered sent forth
an odour so agreeable, that the three pair of eyes in the two
beds opened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet.
Mr. Tetterby, without regarding this tacit invitation to be
seated, stood repeating slowly, “‘ Yes, yes, your supper will
be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus—your mother went out in
the wet, to the cook’s shop to buy it. It was very good of
your mother so to do ’—until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been
exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, caught
him round the neck, and wept.

“Oh, ’Dolphus!” said Mrs. Tetterby, “how could J
go and behave so? ”

This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and
Johnny to that degree, that they both, as with one accord,

360 THE HAUNTED MAN

raised a dismal cry, which had the effect of immediately
shutting up the round eyes in the beds, and utterly routing
the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing in
from the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the
eating way.

“‘T am sure, ’Dolphus,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, “‘ coming
home, I had no more idea than a child unborn—”

Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and
observed, “‘ Say than the baby, my dear.”

‘*__Had no more idea than the baby,” said Mrs. Tetterby
—‘‘ Johnny don’t look at me, but look at her, or she’ll fall
out of your lap and be killed, and then you'll die in agonies of
a broken heart, and serve you right.—No more idea I hadn’t
than that darling, of being-cross when I came home; but
somehow, ’Dolphus—” Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again
turned her wedding-ring round and round her finger.

“T see!” said Mr. Tetterby. “I understand! My
little woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather,
and hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless
your soul! No wonder! ’Dolf, my man,” continued Mr.
Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, ‘‘ here’s your
mother been and bought, at the cook’s shop, besides pease
pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of pork, with
lots of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning gravy and
mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your plate, my boy,
and begin while it’s simmering.”

Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received
his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, and with-
drawing to his particular stool, fell upon his supper tooth
and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but received his
rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush of gravy, trickle
any on the baby. He was required, for similar reason, to
keep his pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket.

There might have been more pork on the knucklebone,
—which knucklebone the carver at the cook’s shop had
assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers—
but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory
dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense
of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard,
like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they
were not absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the
whole there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was
irresistible to the Tetterbys in bed, who, though professing

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 361

to slumber peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their
parents, and silently appealed to their brothers for any
gastronomic token of fraternal affection. They, not hard
of heart, presenting scraps in return, it resuited that a
party of light skirmishers in night-gowns were careering
about the parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr.
Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him
the necessity of a charge, before which these guerilla troops
retired in all directions and in great confusion.

Mrs, Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed
to be something on Mrs. Tetterby’s mind. At one time she
laughed without reason, and at another time she cried with-
out reason, and at last she laughed and cried together in a
manner so very unreasonable that her husband was con-
founded.

‘“My little woman,” said Mr. Tetterby, ‘if the world
goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to choke
you.”

“‘ Give me a drop of water,” said Mrs. Tetterby, strugg-
ling with herself, ‘‘ and don’t speak to me for the present,
or take any notice of me. Don’t doit!”

Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned
suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy),
and demanded why he was wallowing there, in gluttony
and idleness, instead of coming forward with the baby, that
the sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immedi-
ately approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs.
Tetterby holding out her hand to signify that she was not in
a condition to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he
was interdicted from advancing another inch, on pain of
perpetual hatred from all his dearest connections; and
accordingly retired to his stool again, and crushed himself
as before.

After a pause Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now,
and began to laugh.

“« My little woman,” said her husband, dubiously, ‘‘ are
you quite sure you’re better? Or are you, Sophia, about
to break out in a fresh direction? ”

“No, ’Dolphus, no,” replied his wife. “I’m quite
myself.” With that, settling her hair, and pressing the
palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again.

“* What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment! ”
said Mrs. Tetterby. ‘‘ Come nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me

362 THE HAUNTED MAN

ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you
all about it.”

Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby
laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes.

“You know, ’Dolphus, my dear,” said Mrs. Tetterby,
“that when I was single, I might have given myself away
in several directions. At one time, four after me at once;
two of them were sons of Mars.”

‘We're all sons of Ma’s, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby,
“‘jointly with Pa’s.”

“I don’t mean that,” replied his wife. “I mean
soldiers—serjeants.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Tetterby.

“ Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of such things
now, to regret them; and I’m sure I've got as good a husband,
and would do as much to prove that I was fond of him, as—’’

** As any little woman in the world,” said Mr. Tetterby.
“Very good. Very good.”

If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have
expressed a gentler consideration for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-
like stature; and if Mrs. Tetterby had been two feet high,
she could not have felt it more appropriately her due.

“ But you see, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “‘ this being
Christmas-time, when all people who can, make holiday,
and when all people who have got money, like to spend
some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts when I was in
the streets just now. There was so many things to be sold—
such delicious things to eat, such fine things to look at, such
delightful things to have—and there was so much calculat-
ing and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out a six-
pence for the commonest thing; and the basket was so large,
and wanted so much in it; and my stock of money was so
small, and would go such a little way ;—you hate me, don’t
you, ’Dolphus? ”

“Not quite,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ as yet.”

“Well! I'll tell you the whole truth,’”’ pursued his wife,
penitently, “and then perhaps you will. I felt all this, so
much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and when
I saw a lot of other calculating faces and large baskets
trudging about, too, that I began to think whether I mightn’t
have done better, and been happier, if—I hadn’t—” the
wedding-ring went round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook
her downcast head as she turned it.

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 363

“I see,” said her husband quietly; “if you hadn’t
married at all, or if you had married somebody else? ”

“Yes,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. “ That’s really what I
thought. Do you hate me now, ’Dolphus? ”

““Why no,” said Mr. Tetterby, “‘ I don’t find that I do,
as yet.” :

Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on.

“T begin to hope you won’t now, ’Dolphus, though I
am afraid I haven’t told you the worst. I can’t think what
came over me. I don’t know whether I was ill, or mad,
or what I was, but I couldn’t call up anything that seemed
to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune.
All the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had—they
seemed so poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could
have trodden on them. And I could think of nothing else,
except our being poor, and the number of mouths there were
at home.”

“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her
hand encouragingly, “ that’s truth after all. We are poor,
and there are a number of mouths at home here.”

“ Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf! ” cried his wife, laying her hands
upon his neck, “‘ my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had
been at home a very little while—how different! Ch,
Dolf, dear, how different it was! I felt as if there was a rush
of recollection on me, all at once, that softened my hard
heart, and filled it up till it was bursting. All our struggles
for a livelihood, all our cares and wants since we have been
married, all the times of sickness, all the hours of watching,
we have ever had, by one another, or by the children,
seemed to speak to me, and say that they had made us one,
and that I never might have been, or could have been, or
would have been, any other than the wife and mother I am.
Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could have trodden
on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me—Oh so priceless,
and dear!—that I couldn’t bear to think how much I had
wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times,
how could I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, how could I ever
have the heart to do it!”

The good woman, quite carried away by her honest
tenderness and remorse, was weeping with all her heart,
when she started up with a scream, and ran behind her
husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children
started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about

364 THE HAUNTED MAN

her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a
pale man in a black cloak who had come into the room.

“Look at that man! Look there! What does he
want? ”

“My dear,” returned her husband, “ Pll ask him if
you'll let me go. What’s the matter? How you shake!”

“‘ T saw him in the street, when I was out just now. He
looked at me, and stood near me. I am afraid of him.”

“ Afraid of him! Why?”

“TI don’t know why—I—stop! husband!” for he was
going towards the stranger.

She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one
upon her breast; and there was a peculiar fluttering all over
her, and a hurried unsteady motion of her eyes, as if she had
lost something.

** Are you ill, my dear? ”

“ What is it that is going from me again? ” she muttered,
in alow voice. ‘“‘ What is this that is going away?”

Then she abruptly answered, ‘ Ill? No, I am quite
well,” and stood looking vacantly at the floor.

Her husband, who had not been altogether free from the
infection of her fear at first, and whom the present strange-
ness of her manner did not tend to reassure, addressed himself
to the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood still, and
whose eyes were bent upon the ground.

“What may be your pleasure, sir,’ he asked, ‘‘ with
us? ”

“TI fear that my coming in unperceived,” returned the
visitor, ‘“‘ has alarmed you; but you were talking and did
not hear me.”

** My little woman says—perhaps you heard her say it,”
returned Mr. Tetterby, “‘ that it’s not the first time you have
alarmed her to-night.’

“Tam sorry for it. I remember to have observed her,
for a few moments only, in the street. I had no intention
of frightening her.”

As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It
was extraordinary to see what dread she had of him, and
with what dread he observed it—and yet how narrowly and
closely.

“ My name,” he said, ‘‘ is Redlaw. I come from the old
college hard by. A young gentleman who is a student
there, lodges in your house, does he not?” |

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 365

“Mr. Denham?” said Tetterby.

es

It was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly
noticeable; but the little man, before speaking again,
passed his hand across his forehead, and looked quickly
round the room, as though he were sensible of some change
in its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly transferring to
him the look of dread he had directed towards his wife,
stepped back, and his face turned paler.

“The gentleman’s room,” said Tetterby, “is upstairs,
sir. There’s a more convenient private entrance; but
as you have come in here, it will save you going out into the
cold, if you’ll take this little staircase,” showing one com-
municating directly with the parlour, “ and go up to him
that way, if you wish to see him.”

“Yes, I wish to see him,” said the Chemist. ‘ Can you
spare a light?”

The watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inex-
plicable distrust that darkened it, seemed to trouble Mr.
Tetterby. He paused; and looking fixedly at him in return,
stood for a minute or so, like a man stupefied, or fascinated.

At length he said, “ I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll follow
me.”

“No,” replied the Chemist, ‘“ I don’t wish to be at-
tended, or announced to him. He does not expect me. I
wouldrather goalone. Please to give me the light, if you can
spare it, and I’ll find the way.”

In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in
taking the candle from the newsman, he touched him on
the breast. Withdrawing his hand hastily, almost as though
he had wounded him by accident (for he did not know in
what part of himself his new power resided, or how it was
communicated, or how the manner of its reception varied
in different persons), he turned and ascended the stair.

But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked
down. The wife was standing in the same place, twisting
her ring round and round upon her finger. The husband,
with his head bent forward on his breast, was musing
heavily and sullenly. The children, still clustering about
the mother, gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled
together, when they saw him looking down.

“Come!” said the father, roughly. ‘ There’s enough
of this. Get to bed here!”

366 THE HAUNTED MAN

“The place is inconvenient and small enough,” the
mother added, “ without you. Get to bed!”

The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little
Johnny and the baby lagging last. The mother, glancing
contemptuously round the sordid room, and tossing from
her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the threshold of
her task of clearing the table, and sat down, pondering idly
and dejectedly. The father betook himself to the chimney-
corner, and impatiently raking the small fire together,
bent over it as if he would monopolise it all. They did not
interchange a word.

The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief;
looking back upon the change below, and dreading equally
to go on or return.

““ What have I done! ”’ he said, confusedly. ‘‘ What am
I going to do!”

*“ To be the benefactor of mankind,” he thought he heard
a voice reply.

He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a
passage now shutting out the little parlour from his view,
he went on, directing his eyes before him at the way he went.

“ Itis only since last night,’”’ he muttered, gloomily, “‘ that
Thave remained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me.
I am strange to myself. I am here, as in a dream. What
interest have I in this place, or in any place that I can bring
to my remembrance? My mind is going blind! ”

There was a door before him, and he knocked at it.
Being invited, by a voice within, to enter, he complied.

“Is that my kind nurse?” said the voice. “ But I
need notask her. There is no one else to come here.”

It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and
attracted his attention to a young man lying on a couch,
drawn before the chimney-piece, with the back towards the
door. A meagre scanty stove, pinched and hollowed like
a sick man’s cheeks, and bricked into the centre of a hearth,
that it could scarcely warm, contained the fire, to which
his face was turned. Being so near the windy house-top,
it wasted quickly, and with a busy sound, and the burning
ashes dropped down fast.

“They chink when they shoot out here,”’ said the student
smiling, “‘ so, according to the gossips, they are not coffins,
but purses. I shall be well and rich yet, some day, if it
please God, and shall live perhaps to love a daughter Milly,

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 367

in remembrance of the kindest nature and the gentlest
heart in the world.”

He put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but,
being weakened, he lay still, with his face resting on his other
hand, and did not turn round.

The Chemist glanced about the room;—at the student’s.
books and papers, piled upon a table in a corner, where they,.
and his extinguished reading-lamp, now prohibited and put.
away, told of the attentive hours that had gone before his:
illness, and perhaps caused it;—at such signs of his old
health and freedom, as the out-of-door attire that hung idle
on the wall;—at those remembrances of other and less.
solitary scenes, the little miniatures upon the chimney-piece,
and the drawing of home;—at that token of his emulation,
perhaps, in some sort, of his personal attachment too, the
framed engraving of himself, the looker-on. The time had
been, only yesterday, when not one of these objects, in its
remotest association of interest with the living figure before
him, would have been lost on Redlaw. Now, they were
but objects: or, if any gleam of such connexion shot upon
him, it perplexed, and not enlightened him, as he stood look~
ing round with a dull wonder.

The student, recalling the thin hand which had remained
so long untouched, raised himself on the couch, and turned
his head.

“Mr. Redlaw! ” he exclaimed, and started up.

Redlaw put out his arm.

“‘Don’t come nearer to me. I will sit here. Remain
you, where you are! ”

He sat down on a chair near the door, and having
glanced at the young man standing leaning with his hand
upon the couch, spoke with his eyes averted towards the
ground.

“‘ [heard by an accident, by what accident is no matter,
that one of my class was ill and solitary. Ireceived no other
description of him, than that he lived in this street. Begin-
ning my inquiries at the first house in it, I have found him.”

“JT have been ill, sir,” returned the student, not merely
with a modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him,
“but am greatly better. An attack of fever—of the brain
I believe—has weakened me, but I am much better. F
cannot say I have been solitary, in my illness, or I should
forget the ministering hand that has been near me.”

368 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ You are speaking of the keeper’s wife,” said Redlaw.

“Yes.” The student bent his head, as if he rendered
her some silent homage.

The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous
apathy, which rendered him more like a marble image on the
tomb of the man who had started from his dinner yesterday
at the first mention of this student’s case, than the breathing
man himself, glanced again at the student leaning with his
hand upon the couch, and looked upon the ground, and in
the air, as if for light for his blinded mind.

“‘I remember your name,” he said, “ when it was
mentioned to me downstairs, just now; and I recollect your
face. We have held but very little personal communi-
cation together? ”

“Very little.”

** You have retired and withdrawn from me, more than
any of the rest, I think.”

The student signified assent.

“And why?” said the Chemist; not with the least
expression of interest, but wilh a moody, wayward kind of
curiosity. ‘‘ Why? How comes it that you have sought
to keep especially from me, the knowledge of-your remaining
here, at this season, when all the rest have dispersed, and of
your beingill! Iwant to know why this is? ”’

The young man, who had heard him with increasing
agitation, raised his downcast eyes to his face, and clasping
his hands together, cried with sudden earnestness and with
trembling lips:

“Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. You know
my secret? ”’

*‘ Secret? ” said the Chemist, harshly. ‘ J know?”

“Yes! Your manner, so different from the interest
and sympathy which endear you to so many hearts, your
altered voice, the constraint there is in everything you say,
and in your looks,” replied the student, ‘‘ warn me that you
know me. That you would conceal it, even now, is but
proof to me (God knows I need none!) of your natural kind-
ness, and of the bar there is between us.’’

A vacant and contemptuous laugh was all his answer.

“ But, Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, ‘‘ as a just man,
and a good man, think how innocent I am, except in name
and descent, of participation in any wrong inflicted on you,
or any sorrow you have borne.”

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 369

“Sorrow!” said Redlaw, laughing. “ Wrong! What
are those to me? ”

“ For Heaven’s sake,” entreated the shrinking student,
“do not let the mere interchange of a few words with me
change you like this, sir! Let me pass again from your
knowledge and notice. Let me occupy my old reserved and
distant place among those whom you instruct. Know me
only by the name I have assumed, and not by that of
Longford—”

“ Longford! ’”? exclaimed the other.

He clasped his head with both his hands, and for a
moment turned upon the young man his own intelligent and
thoughtful face. But the light passed from it, like the sun-
beam of an instant, and it clouded as before.

“The name my mother bears, sir,” faltered the young
man, ‘‘ the name she took, when she might perhaps, have
taken one more honoured. Mr. Redlaw,” hesitating, ‘‘ I
believe I know that history. Where my information halts
my guesses at what is wanting may supply something not
remote from the truth. I am the child of a marriage that
has not proved itself a well-assorted ora happy one. From
infancy I have heard you spoken of with honour and respect
—with something that was almost reverence. I have heard
of such devotion, of such fortitude and tenderness. of such
rising up against the obstacles which press men down, that
my fancy, since I learnt my little lesson from my mother,
has shed a lustre on your name. At last, a poor student
myself, from whom could I learn but you?”

Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him with
a staring frown, answered by no word or sign.

‘I cannot say,’ pursued the other, “I should try in
vain to say, how much it has impressed me, and affected me
to find the gracious traces of the past, in that certain power
of winning gratitude and confidence which is associated
among us students (among the humblest of us most) with
Mr. Redlaw’s generous name. Our ages and positions are so
different, sir, and I am so accustomed to regard you from a
distance, that I wonder at my own presumption when I
touch, however lightly, on that theme. But to one who—
I may say, who felt no common interest in my mother once—
it may be something to hear, now that is all past, with what
indescribable feelings of affection I have, in my obscurity,
regarded him; with what pain and reluctance I have kept

370 THE HAUNTED MAN

aloof from his encouragement, when a word of it would have
made me rich; yet how I have felt it fit that I should hold
my course, content to know him, and to be unknown.
Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, faintly, “ what I would have
said, I have said ill, for my strength is strange to me as yet;
but for anything unworthy in this fraud of mine, forgive me,
and for all the rest forget me! ”

The staring frown remained on Redlaw’s face, and
yielded to no other expression until the student, with these
words, advanced towards him, as if to touch his hand,
when he drew back and cried to him:

“Don’t come nearer to me!”

The young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of his
recoil, and by the sternness of his repulsion; and he passed
his hand, thoughtfully, across his forehead.

“* The past is past,” said the Chemist. ‘“‘ It dies like the
brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life? He raves
or lies! What have I to do with your distempered dreams?
If you want money, here it is. I came to offer it: and
that is all Icame for. There can be nothing else that
brings me here,” he muttered, holding his head again,
with both his hands. ‘* There can be nothing else, and
yet—”

He had tossed his purse upon the table. As he fell
into this dim cogitation with himself, the student took it
up, and held it out to him.

** Take it back, sir,” he said proudly, though not angrily.
**T wish you could take from me, with it, the remembrance
of your words and offer.”

“You do?” he retorted, with a wild light in his eyes.
**'You do?”

1 dor”

The Chemist went close to him, for the first time, and
took the purse, and turned him by the arm, and looked him
in the face.

“There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there not? ”
he demanded, with a laugh.

The wondering student answered, “‘ Yes.”

“In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its
train of physical and mental miseries?” said the Chemist,
with a wild unearthly exultation. “All best forgotten,
are they not?”

The student did not answer, but again pressed his hand,

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 371

confusedly, across his forehead. Redlaw still held him by
the sleeve, when Milly’s voice was heard outside.

“ T can see very well now,” she said, “ thank you, Dolf.
Don’t cry, dear. Father and mother will be comfortable
again, to-morrow, and home will be comfortable too. A
gentleman with him, is there? ”

Redlaw released his hold, as he listened.

“1 have feared, from the first moment,’? he murmured
to himself, “to meet her. There is a steady quality of
goodness in her, that I dread to influence. I may be the
murderer of what is tenderest and best within her bosom.”

She was knocking at the door.

“‘ Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid
her? ” he muttered, looking uneasily around.

She was knocking at the door again.

“ Of all the visitors who could come here,” he said, in a
hoarse alarmed voice, turning to his companion, “ this is
the one I should desire most to avoid. Hide me!”

The student opened a frail door in the wall, communicat-
ing where the garret roof began to slope towards the floor,
withasmallinnerroom. MRedlaw passed in hastily, and shut
it after him.

The student then resumed his place upon the couch,
and called to her to enter.

“ Dear Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, looking round, “‘ they
told me there was a gentleman here.”

“There is no one here but I.”

“There has been some one? ”

“Yes, yes, there has been some one.”

She put her little basket on the table, and went up to the
back of the couch, as if to take the extended hand—but it
was not there. A little surprised, in her quiet way, she
leaned over to look at his face, and gently touched him on

the brow.
“‘ Are you quite as well to-night? Your head is not so

cold as in the afternoon.”

“Tut!” said the student, petulantly, “ very little ails
A little more surprise, but no reproach, was expressed
in her face, as she withdrew to the other side of the table,
and took a small packet of needlework from her basket.
But she laid it down again, on second thoughts, and going
noiselessly about the room, set everything exactly in its

me

372 THE HAUNTED MAN

place, and in the neatest order; even to the cushions on the
couch, which she touched with so light a hand, that he hardly
seemed to know it, as he lay looking at the fire. When all
this was done, and she had swept the hearth, she sat down,
in her modest little bonnet, to her work, and was quietly
busy on it directly.

“It’s the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr.
Edmund,” said Milly, stitching away as she talked. “ It
will look very clean and nice, though it costs very little,
and will save your eyes, too, from the light. My William
says the room should not be too light just now, when you
are recovering so well, or the glare might make you giddy.”

He said nothing; but there was something so fretful
and impatient in his change of position, that her quick
fingers stopped, and she looked at him anxiously.

“‘ The pillows are not comfortable,” she said, laying down
her work andrising. ‘“ I will soon put them right.”

“They are very well,” he answered. ‘“‘ Leave them
alone, pray. You make so much of everything.”

He raised his head to say this, and looked at her so
thanklessly, that, after he had thrown himself down again,
she stood timidly pausing. However, she resumed her seat,
and her needle, without having directed even a murmuring
look towards him, and was soon as busy as before.

“T have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that you have
been often thinking of late, when I have been sitting by, how
true the saying is, that adversity is a good teacher. Health
will be more precious to you, after this illness, than it has
ever been. And years hence, when this time of year comes
round, and you remember the days when you lay here sick,
alone, that the knowledge of your illness might not afflict
those who are dearest to you, your home will be doubly
dear and doubly blest. Now, isn’t that a good, true thing? ”

She was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in
what she said, and too composed and quiet altogether, to
be on the watch for any look he might direct towards her in
reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful glance fell harmless,
and did not wound her.

“Ahtl’? said Milly, with her pretty head inclining
thoughtfully on one side, as she looked down, following her
busy fingers with her eyes. “ Even on me—and I am very
different from you, Mr. Edmund, for I have no learning,
and don’t know how to think properly—this view of such

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 373

things has made a great impression, since you have been
lying ill. When I have seen you so touched by the kindness
and attention of the poor people downstairs, I have felt
that you thought even that experience some repayment
for the loss of health, and I have read in your face, as plain
as if it was a book, that but for some trouble and sorrow
we should never know half the good there is about us.”

His getting up from the couch, interrupted her, or she
was going on to say more.

““We needn’t magnify the merit, Mrs. William,” he
rejoined slightingly. “‘ The people downstairs will be paid
in good time I dare say, for any little extra service they may
have rendered me; and perhaps they anticipate no less.
I am much obliged to you, too.’

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him.

“‘T can’t be made to feel the more obliged by your
exaggerating the case,” he said. ‘‘ I am sensible that you
have been interested in me, and I say I am much obliged to
you. What more would you have? ”

Her work fell on her lap, and she still looked at him walking
to and fro with an intolerant air, and stopping now and then.

“ T say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken
my sense of what is your due in obligation, by preferring
enormous claims upon me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction,
adversity! One might suppose I bad been dying a score
of deaths here! ”

“Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,” she asked, rising and
going nearer to him, “ that I spoke of the poor people of the
house, with any reference to myself? To me?” laying her
hand upon her bosom with a simple and innocent smile
of astonishment.

“Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature,” he
returned. “I have had an indisposition, which your
solicitude—observe! I say solicitude—makes a great deal
more of, than its merits; and it’s over, and we can’t per-
petuate it.”

He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table.

She watched him for a little while, until her smile was
quite gone, and then returning to where her basket was,
said gently:

“Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?”

“‘ There is no reason why I should detain you here,” he

replied.

374 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ Except—” said Milly, hesitating, and showing her
work.

“Oh! the curtain,’ he answered, with a supercilious
laugh. ‘ That’s not worth staying for.”

She made up the little packet again, and put it in her
basket. Then, standing before him with such an air of
patient entreaty that he could not choose but look at her,
she said:

“If you should want me, I will come back willingly.
When you did want me, I was quite happy to come: there
was no merit init. I think you must be afraid, that, now
you are getting well, I may be troublesome to you; but I
should not have been, indeed. Ishould have come no longer
than your weakness and confinement lasted. You owe
me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by
me as if I was a lady—even the very lady that you love; and
if you suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have
tried to do to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more
wrong than ever you can dome. That is why I am sorry.”

If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as in-
dignant as she was calm, as angry in her look as she was
gentle, as loud of tone as she was low and clear, she might
have left no sense of her departure in the room, compared
with that which fell upon the lonely student when she went
away.

He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had
been, when Redlaw came out of his concealment, and came
to the door.

“When sickness lays its hand on you again,” he said,
looking flercely back at him, ‘‘—may it be soon!—Die
here! Rot here!”

“ What have you done? ” returned the other, catching at
his cloak. “ What change have you wrought in me?
What curse have you brought upon me? Give me back
myself! ”

“Give me back myself!’ exclaimed Redlaw like a
madman. “I am infected! I am infectious! I am
charged with poison for my own mind, and the minds of all
mankind. Where I felt interest, compassion, sympathy,
Iam turning into stone. Selfishness and ingratitude spring
up in my blighted footsteps. I am only so much less base
than the wretches whom I make so, that in the moment of
their transformation I can hate them.”

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 375

As he spoke—the young man still holding to his cloak—
he cast him off, and struck him: then, wildly hurried out
into the night air where the wind was blowing, the snow
falling, the cloud-drift sweeping on, the moon dimly shining,
and where, blowing in the wind, falling with the snow,
drifting with the clouds, shining in the moonlight, and
heavily looming in the darkness, were the Phantom’s words,
“ The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where
you willl”

Whither he went, he neither knew nor cared, so that he
avoided company. The change he felt within him made
the busy streets a desert, and himself a desert, and the
multitude around him, in their manifold endurances and
ways of life, a mighty waste of sand, which the wind tossed
into unintelligible heaps and made a ruinous confusion of.
Those traces in his breast which the Phantom had Lold him
would “ die out soon,” were not, as yet, so far upon their
way to death, but that he understood enough of what he
was, and what he made of others, to desire to be alone.

This put it in his mind—he suddenly bethought himself
as he was going along, of the boy who had rushed into his
room. And then he recollected, that of those with whom
he had communicated since the Phantom’s disappearance,
that boy alone had showed no signs of being changed.

Monstrous and odious as the wild thing was to him, he
determined to seek it out, and prove if this were really so;
and also to seek it with another intention, which came into
his thoughts at the same time.

So, resolving with some difficulty where he was, he
directed his steps back to the old college, and to that part
of it where the general porch was, and where, alone, the
pavement was worn by the tread of the student’s feet.

The keeper’s house stood just within the iron gates,
forming a part of the chief quadrangle. There was a little
cloister outside, and from that sheltered place he knew he
sould look in at the window of their ordinary room, and see
who was within. The iron gates were shut, but his hand
was familiar with the fastening, and drawing it back by
hrusting in his wrist between the bars, he passed through
oftly, shut it again, and crept up to the window, crumbling
he thin crust of snow with his feet.

The fire, to which he had directed the boy last night,
hining brightly through the glass, made an illuminated

376 THE HAUNTED MAN

place upon the ground. Instinctively avoiding this, and
going round it, he looked in at the window. At first, he
thought that there was no one there, and that the blaze
was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling and the dark
walls; but peering in more narrowly, he saw the object of his
search coiled asleep before it on the floor. He passed
quickly to the door, opened it, and went in.

The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the Chemist
stooped to rouse him, it scorched his head. So soon as he was
touched, the boy, not half awake, clutched his rags together
with the instinct of flight upon him, half rolled and half
ran into a distant corner of the room, where, heaped upon
the ground, he struck his foot out to defend himself.

“Get up!’ said the Chemist. ‘* You have not forgotten
me? ”

“You let me alone! ”’ returned the boy. “ This is the
woman’s house—not yours.”

The Chemist’s steady eye controlled him somewhat,
or inspired him with enough submission to be raised upon
his feet, and looked at.

** Who washed them, and put those bandages where they
were bruised and cracked?’ asked the Chemist, pointing
to their altered state.

“The woman did.”

“ And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, too?”’

“Yes, the woman.”’

Redlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes towards
himself, and with the same intent now held him by the chin,
and threw his wild hair back, though he loathed to touch
him. ‘The boy watched his eyes keenly, as if he thought
it needful to his own defence, not knowing what he might
do next; and Redlaw could see well that no change came
over him.

“Where are they? ”’ he inquired.

“'The woman’s out.”

“IT know she is. Where is the old man with the white
hair, and his son?”

“The woman’s husband, d’ye mean? ”’ inquired the boy.

““Aye. Where are those two?”

“Out. Something’s the matter, somewhere. They
were fetched out in a hurry, and told me to stop here.”

“ Come with me,” said the Chemist, “ and I’ll give you
money.”

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 377

‘Come where? and how much will you give? ”

“Tl give you more shillings than you ever saw, and
bring you back soon. Do you know your way to where you
came from? ”

“You let me go,” returned the boy, suddenly twisting
out of his grasp. ‘‘ I’m not a-going to take you there.
Let me be, or I’ll heave some fire at you! ”

He was down before it, and ready, with his savage little
hand, to pluck the burning coals out.

What the Chemist had felt, in observing the effect of his
charmed influence stealing over those with whom he came
in contact, was not nearly equal to the cold vague terror
with which he saw this baby-monster put it at defiance.
it chilled his blood to look on the immovable impenetrable
thing, in the likeness of a child, with its sharp malignant
face turned up to his, and its almost infant hand, ready
at the bars.

“ Listen, boy,” he said. ‘‘ You shall take me where you
please, so that you take me where the people are very
miserable or very wicked. I want to do them good, and
not to harm them. You shall have money as I have
told you, and I will bring you back. Get up! Come
quickly! ’’ He made a hasty step towards the door, afraid
of her returning.

“‘ Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold me,
nor yet touch me?” said the boy, slowly withdrawing the
hand with which he threatened, and beginning to get up.

**T will!”

«And let me go before, behind, or anyways I like?’ ’

“JT willl”

“* Give me some money first then, and I’ll go.”

The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his ex-
tended hand. To count them was beyond the boy’s
knowledge, but he said “ one,” every time, and avariciously
looked at each as it was given, and at the donor. He had
nowhere to put them, out of his hand, but in his mouth;
and he put them there.

Redlaw then wrote with his pencil on a leaf of his
pocket book, that the boy was with him; and laying it on the
table, signed to him to follow. Keeping his rags together,
as usual, the boy complied, and went out with his bare head
and his naked feet into the winter night.

Preferring not to depart by the iron gate by which he

378 THE HAUNTED MAN

had entered where they were in danger of meeting her
whom he so anxiously avoided the Chemist led the way,
through some of those passages among which the boy had
lost himself, and by that portion of the building where he
lived, to a small door of which he had the key. When they
got into the street, he stopped to ask his guide—who
instantly retreated from him—if he knew where they were.

The savage thing looked here and there, and at length,
nodding his head, pointed in the direction he designed to
take. Redlaw going on at once, he followed, somewhat
less suspiciously; shifting his money from his mouth into
his hand, and back again into his mouth, and stealthily
rubbing it bright upon his shreds of clothes, as he went
along.

Three times, in their progress, they were side by side.
Three times they stopped, being side by side. Three times
the Chemist glanced down at his face, and shuddered as it
forced upon him one reflection.

The first occasion was when they were crossing an old
churchyard, and Redlaw stopped among the graves, utterly
at a loss how to connect them with any tender, softening,
or consolatory thought.

The second was, when the breaking forth of the moon
{induced him to look up at the Heavens, where he saw her in
her glory, surrounded by a host of stars he still knew by the
names and histories which human science has appended to
them; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont to
see, felt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up
there, on a bright night.

The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive
strain of music but could only hear a tune, made manifest
to him by the dry mechanism of the instruments and his own
ears, with no address to any mystery within him, without a
whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless upon
him as the sound of last year’s running water, or the rushing
of last year’s wind.

At each of these three times, he saw with horror that,
in spite of the vast intellectual distance between them, and
their being unlike each other in all physical respects, the
expression on the boy’s face was the expression on his own.

They journeyed on for some time—now through such
crowded places, that he often looked over his shoulder
thinking he had lost his guide, but generally finding him

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 379

within his shadow on his other side; now by ways so quiet,
that he could have counted his short, quick, naked footsteps
coming on behind—until they arrived at a ruinous collection
of houses, and the boy touched him and stopped.

“In there,” he said, pointing out one house where there
were scattered lights in the windows, and a dim lantern in
the doorway, with ‘‘ Lodgings for Travellers ” painted on it.

Redlaw looked about him; from the houses to the waste
piece of ground on which the houses stood, or rather did not
altogether tumble down, unfenced, undrained, unlighted,
and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from that, to the sloping
line of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct or bridge
with which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually,
towards them, until the last but one was a mere kennel for
a dog, the last a plundered little heap of bricks; from that,
to the child close to him, cowering and trembling with the
cold, and limping on one little foot, while he coiled the other
round his leg to warm it, yet staring at all these things with
that frightful likeness of expression so apparent in his face,
that Redlaw started from him.

“In there! ” said the boy, pointing out the house again.
* TI wait.”

“ Will they let me in? ” asked Redlaw.

“Say you’re a doctor,” he answered with a nod.
“ There’s plenty ill here.”

Looking back on his way to the house-door, Redlaw saw
him trail himself upon the dust and crawl within the shelter
of the smallest arch as if he were arat. He had no pity for
the thing, but he was afraid of it; and when it looked out
of its den at him, he hurried to the house as a retreat.

“‘ Sorrow, wrong and trouble,” said the Chemist, with a
painful effort at some more distinct remembrance, “ at
least haunt this place, darkly. He can do no harm, who
brings forgetfulness of such things here! ”

With these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in.

There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep
or forlorn, whose head was bent down on her hands and
knees. As it was not easy to pass without treading on her,
and as she was perfectly regardless of his near approach,
he stopped, and touched her on the shoulder. Looking up,
she showed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom
and promise were all swept away, as if the haggard winter
should unnaturally kill the spring.

380 ~ s-PHE HAUNTED MAN

With little or no show of concern on his account, she
moved nearer to the wall to leave him a wider passage.

““ What are you? ”’ said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand
upon the broken stair-rail.

“What do you think I am?” she answered, showing
him her face again.

He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately
made, so soon disfigured; and something, which was not
compassion—for the springs in which a true compassion for
such miseries has its rise, were dried up in his breast—but
which was nearer to it, for the moment, than any feeling
that had lately struggled into the darkening but not wholly
darkened, night of his mind—mingled a touch of softness
with his next words.

“ Tam come here to give relief, if can,” he said. ‘‘ Are
you thinking of any wrong? ”’

She frowned at him and then laughed; and then her
laugh prolonged itself into a shivering sigh, as she dropped
her head again, and hid her fingers in her hair.

“Are you thinking of a wrong?” he asked once more.

“Tam thinking of my life,’ she said, with a momentary
look at him.

He had a perception that she was one of many, and
that he saw the type of thousands, when he saw her drooping
at his feet.

“What are your parents? ”’ he demanded.

“TIT had a good home once. My father was a gardener,
far away, in the country.”

“Ts he dead? ”

“He's dead to me. All such things are dead to me.
You a gentleman, and not know that!’”’ She raised her eyes
again, and laughed at him.

“ Girl!” said Redlaw, sternly, “‘ before this death, of all
such things, was brought about, was there no wrong done
to you? In spite of all that you can do, does no remem-
brance of wrong cleave to you? Are there not times upon
times when it is misery to you?”

So little of what was womanly was left in her appearance,
that now, when she burst into tears, he stood amazed.
But he was more amazed, and much disquieted, to note
that in her awakened recollection of this wrong, the first

trace of her old humanity and frozen tenderness appeared
to show itself.

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 381

He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that her
arms were black, her face cut, and her bosom bruised.

“What brutal hand has hurt you so? ” he asked.

“My own. - I did it myself!’ she answered quickly.

“Yt is impossible.”

“Tll swear I did. He didn’t touch me. I did it to
myself in a passion, and threw myself down here. He wasn’t
near me. He never laid a hand upon me! ”’

In the white determination of her face, confronting him
with this untruth he saw enough of the last perversion and
distortion of good surviving in that miserable breast, to be
stricken with remorse that he had ever come near her.

“ Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!” he muttered, turning
his fearful gaze away. ‘“‘ All that connects her with the
state from which she has fallen, has those roots! In the
name of God, let me go by!”

Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid
to think of having sundered the last thread by which she
held upon the mercy of Heaven, he gathered his cloak about
him, and glided swiftly up the stairs.

Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which stood
partiy open, and which, as he ascended, a man with a candle
in his hand, came forward from within to shut. But this
man on seeing him, drew back, with much emotion in his
manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, mentioned his name
aloud.

In the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped,
endeavouring to recollect the wan and startled face. Hehad
no time to consider it, for, to his yet greater amazement,
old Philip came out of the room, and took him by the hand.

“Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “ this is like you, this
{s like you, sir! you have heard of it, and have come after
us to render any help you can. Ah, too late, too late!”

Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led
{nto the room. A man lay there, on a truckle bed, and
William Swidger stood at the bedside.

“Too late!’ murmured the old man, looking wistfully
into the Chemist’s face; and the tears stole down his cheeks.

“‘ That’s what I say, father,’’ interposed his son in a low
voice. ‘‘ That’s where it is, exactly. To keep as quiet as
ever we can while he’s a-dozing, is the only thing to do.
You're right, father! ”’

Redlaw paused at the bedside, and looked down on the

382 THE HAUNTED MAN

figure that was stretched upon the mattress. It was that
of a man, who should have been in the vigour of his life,
but on whom it was not likely the sun would ever shine
again. The vices of his forty or fifty years’ career had so
branded him, that, in comparison with their effects upon
his face, the heavy hand of time upon the old man’s face
who watched him had been merciful and beautifying.

«“‘ Who is this? ” asked the Chemist, looking round.

““ My son George, Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, wring-
ing his hands. ‘‘ My eldest son George, who was more
his mother’s pride than all the rest! ”

Redlaw’s eyes wandered from the old man’s grey head,
as he laid it down upon the bed, to the person who had
recognised him, and who had kept aloof, in the remotest
corner of the room. He seemed to be about his own age;
and although he knew no such hopeless decay and broken
man as he appeared to be, there was something in the turn
of his figure, as he stood with his back towards him, and
now went out at the door, that made him pass his hand
uneasily across his brow.

** William,’ he said in a gloomy whisper. ‘‘ Who is
that man?”

““ Why you see, sir,’ returned Mr. William. ‘“ That’s
what I say, myself. Why should a man ever go and gamble,
and the like of that, and let himself down inch by inch till
he can’t let himself down any lower! ”’

“Has he done so?” asked Redlaw, glancing after him
with the same uneasy action as before.

“Just exactly that, sir,” returned William Swidger,
“as I’m told. He knows a little bit about medicine, sir,
it seems; and having been wayfaring towards London with
my unhappy brother that you see here,” Mr. William passed
his coat-sleeve across his eyes, ‘‘ and being lodging upstairs
for the night—what I say, you see, is that strange com-
panions come together here sometimes—he looked in to
attend upon him, and came for us at his request. What a
mournful spectacle, sir! But that’s where it is. It’s
enough to kill my father! ’”’

Redlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where
he was and with whom, and the spell he carried with him—
which his surprise had obscured—retired a little, hurriedly,
debating with himself whether to shun the house that
moment, or remain.

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 383

Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it seemed
to be a part of his condition to struggle with, he argued for
remaining.

“ Was it only yesterday,” he said, ‘“‘ when I observed the
memory of this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble,
and shall I be afraid to-night to shake it? Are such remem-
brances as I can drive away, so precious to this dying man
that I need fear for him? No! I’ll stay here.”

But he stayed, in fear and trembling none the less for
these words; and, shrouded in his black cloak with his face
turned from them, stood away from the bedside, listening
to what they said, as if he felt himself a demon in the place.

“Father! ” murmured the sick man, rallying a little
from his stupor.

““My boy! My son George! ” said old Philip.

“You spoke, just now, of my being mother’s favourite,
long ago. It’s a dreadful thing to think now, of long ago! ”

“No, no, no,” returned the old man. ‘“ Think of it.
Don’t say it’s dreadful. It’s not dreadful to me, my son.”

““Tt cuts you to the heart, father.’’ For the old man’s
tears were falling on him.

“Yes, yes,” said Philip, ‘“‘so it does; but it does me
good. It’s a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but it docs
me good, George. Oh, think of it too, think of it too, and
your heart will be softened more and more! Where’s my
son William? William, my boy, your mother loved him
dearly to the last, and with her latest breath said, ‘ Tell him
I forgave him, blessed him, and prayed for him.’ Those
were her words to me. I have never forgotten them, and
I’m eighty-seven! ”

“‘ Father! ” said the man upon the bed, “‘ I am dying, I
know. Iam so far gone, that I can hardly speak, even of
- what my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for me

beyond this bed? ”

“There is hope,” returned the old man, “ for all who
are softened and penitent. There is hope for all such.
Oh!” he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, “ I
was thankful only yesterday, that I could remember this
unhappy son when he was an innocent child. But what a
comfort it is, now, to think that even God himself has that
remembrance of him!”

Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrunk like

a murderer.

384 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ Ah!” feebly moaned the man upon the bed, “ the
waste since then, the waste of life since then! ”

‘“‘But he was a child once,” said the old man. ‘“ He
played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at
night, and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at
his poor mother’s knee. Ihave seen him do it, many a time,
and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and kiss him.
Sorrowful as it was to her, and to me, to think of this, when
he went so wrong, and when our hopes and plans for him
were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, that
nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better
than the fathers upon earth! Oh, Father, so much more
afflicted by the errors of thy children! take this wanderer
back! Notas he is, but as he was then, let him cry to thee,
as he has so often seemed to cry to us!”

As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son,
for whom he made the supplication, laid his sinking head
against him for support and comfort, as if he were indeed
the child of whom he spoke.

When did man ever tremble as Redlaw trembled, in the
silence that ensued! He knew it must come upon them,
knew that it was coming fast.

‘* My time is very short, my breath is shorter,” said the
sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with the other
groping in the air, ‘‘ and I remember there is something on
my mind concerning the man who was here just now.
Father and William—wait!—is there really anything in
black, out there? ”

“Yes, yes, it is real,” said his aged father.

“Ts it a man? ”’

“What I say myself, George,” interposed his brother,
bending kindly over him. ‘“ It’s Mr. Redlaw.”

“T thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him to come
here.” °

The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared
before him. Obedient to the motion of his hand, he sat
upon the bed.

“It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir,’”’ said the sick
man, laying his hand upon his heart, with a look in which
the mute, imploring agony of his condition was concentrated,
“ by the sight of my poor old father, and the thought of all
the trouble I have been the cause of, and all the wrong and
sorrow lying at my door, that—”

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 385

Was it the extremity to which he had come, or was it
the dawning of another change, that made him stop?

“—that what I can do right, with my mind running on
so much so fast, I'll try to do. There was another man
here. Did you see him? ”

Redlaw could not reply by any word; for when he saw
that fatal sign he knew so well now, of the wandering hand
upon the forehead, his voice died at his lips. But he made
some indication of assent.

“He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He is completely
beaten down, and has no resource at all. Look after him!
Lose notime! Iknowhe has it in his mind to kill himself.”

It was working. It was on his face. His face was
changing, hardening, deepening in all its shades, and losing
all its sorrow.

“Don’t you remember? Don’t you know him?” he
pursued.

He shut his face out for a moment, with the hand that
again wandered over his forehead, and then it lowered on
Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly and callous.

“Why, d—n you! ”’ he said, scowling round, “‘ what have
you been doing to me here! I have lived bold and I mean
to die bold. To the Devil with you!”

And so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, over
his head and ears, as resolute from that time to keep out
all access, and to die in his indifference.

If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not
have struck him from the bedside with a more tremendous
shock. But the old man who had left the bed while his
son was speaking to him, now returning, avoided it quickly
likewise, and with abhorrence.

“‘ Where’s my boy William? ” said the old man hurriedly.
“ William, come away from here. We'll go home.”

““Home, father!’ returned William. ‘“‘ Are you going
to leave your own son? ’”’

‘* Where’s my own son? ”’ replied the old man.

‘* Where? why, there! ”

“‘That’s no son of mine,” said Philip, trembling with
resentment. ‘‘ No such wretch as that, has any claim on
me. My children are pleasant to look at, and they wait
upon me, and get my meat and drink ready, and are useful
tome. I’vearight toit! I’m eighty-seven!”’

““ You’re old enough to be no older,” muttered William,

I2—N

386 THE HAUNTED MAN

looking at him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets.
““T don’t know what good you are, myself. We could have
a deal more pleasure without you.”

““ My son, Mr. Redlaw!”’ said the old man. ‘“ My son,
too! The boy talking to me of my son! Why, what has
he ever done to give me any pleasure, I should like to know?”

“TI don’t know what you have ever done to give me any
pleasure,” said William, sulkily.

“Let me think,” said the old man. ‘ For how many
Christmas times running, have I sat in my warm place, and
never had to come out in the cold night air; and have made
good cheer, without being disturbed by any such uncomfort-
able, wretched sight as him there? Is it twenty, William? ”

““Nigher forty, it seems,’’ he muttered. ‘‘ Why, when
I look at my father, sir, and come to think of it,’ addressing
Redlaw with an impatience and irritation that were quite
new, “ I’m whipped if I can see anything in him but a
calendar of ever so many years of eating and drinking, and
making himself comfortable, over and over again.”

‘* 1—I'm eighty-seven,” said the old man, rambling on,
childishly and weakly, ‘“‘ and I don’t know as I ever was
much put out by anything. I’m not going to begin now,
because of what he calls my son. He’s not my son. I’ve
had a power of pleasant times. I recollect once—no I don’t
—no, it’s broken off. It was something about a game of
cricket and a friend of mine, but it’s somehow broken off.
I wonder who he was—I suppose I liked him? And I
wonder what became of him—I suppose he died? But I
don’t know. And I don’t care, neither; I don’t care a bit.’’

In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head he
put his hands into his waistcoat-pockets. In one of them he
found a bit of holly (left there, probably last night), which
he now took out, and looked at.

“ Berries, eh?” said the old man. ‘Ah! It’s a pity
they're not good toeat. TI recollect, when I was a little chap
about as high as that, and out a-walking with—let me see—
who was I out a-walking with?—no, I don’t remember
how that was. I don’t remember as I ever walked with any-
one particular, or cared for any one, or any one for me.
Berries, eh? There’s good cheer when there’s berries.
Well, I ought to have my share of it, and to be waited on,
and kept warm and comfortable; for I’m eighty-seven,
and a poor old man. I’m eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven! ”

THE GIFT DIFFUSED 387

The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he repeated
this, he nibbled at the leaves, and spat the morsels out; the
cold, uninterested eye with which his youngest son (so
changed) regarded him; the determined apathy with which
his eldest son lay hardened in his sin;—impressed them-
selves no more on Redlaw’s observation; for he broke his
way from the spot to which his feet seemed to have been
fixed, and ran out of the house.

His guide came crawling forth from his place of
refuge, and was ready for him before he reached the
arches.

“ Back to the woman’s? ”’ he inquired.

“ Back, quickly! ’”’ answered Redlaw. ‘‘ Stop nowhere
on the way.”

For a short distance the boy went on before; but their
return was more like a flight than a walk, and it was as
much as his bare feet could do, to keep pace with the
Chemist’s rapid strides. Shrinking from all who passed,
shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn closely about
him, as though there were mortal contagion in any fluttering
touch of his garments, he made no pause until they reached
the door by which they had come out. He unlocked it with
his key, went in, accompanied by the boy, and hastened
through the dark passages to his own chamber.

The boy watched him as he made the door fast, and
withdrew behind the table, when he looked round.

“Come!” he said. ‘Don’t you touch me! You’ve
not brought me here to take my money away.”

Redlaw threw some more upon the ground. He flung
his body on it immediately, as if to hide it from him, lest
the sight of it should tempt him to reclaim it: and not until
he saw him seated by his lamp, with his face hidden in his
hands, began furtively to pick it up. When he had done
so, he crept near the fire, and, sitting down in a great chair
before it, took from his breast some broken scraps of food,
and fell to munching, and to staring at the blaze, and now
and then to glancing at his shillings, which he kept clenched
up in a bunch, in one hand.

“ And this,” said Redlaw, gazing on him with increased
repugnance and fear, ‘‘ is the only one companion I have
left on earth.”

How long it was before he was aroused from his con-
templation of this creature, whom he dreaded so—whether

388 THE HAUNTED MAN

half an hour, or half the night—he knew not. But the
stillness of the room was broken by the boy (whom he had
seen listening) starting up, and running towards the door.

‘ Here’s the woman coming! ”’ he exclaimed.

The Chemist stopped him on his way, at the moment
when she knocked.

“ Let me go to her, will you? ” said the boy.

““Not now,” returned the Chemist. ‘‘ Stay here. No-
body must pass in or out of the room now. Who’s that?”

“It’s I, sir,” cried Milly. ‘‘ Pray, sir, let me in!”

““No! not for the world!” he said.

““Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in.”

“What is the matter? ”’ he said, holding the boy.

“The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing I
can say will wake him from his terrible infatuation.
William’s father has turned childish ina moment. William
himself is changed. The shock has been too sudden for
him; I cannot understand him; he is not like himself. Oh,
Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, help me!”

“No! No! Nol” he answered.

“Mr. Redlaw! Dear sir! George has been muttering,
in his doze, about the man you saw there, who, he fears,
will kill himself.”

“Better he should do it, than come near me!”

““ He says, in his wanderings, that you know him; that
he was your friend once, long ago; that he is the ruined
father of a student here—my mind misgives me, of the young
gentleman who has been ill. What is to be done? How is
he to be followed? How is he to be saved? Mr. Redlaw,
pray, oh, pray, advise me! Help me!”

All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass
him, and let her in.

“Phantoms! Punishers of impious thoughts!” cried
Redlaw, gazing round in anguish. ‘‘ Look upon me! From
the darkness of my mind, let the glimmering of contrition
that I know is there, shine up, and show my misery! In the
material world, as I have long taught, nothing can be spared;
no step or atom in the wondrous structure could be lost,
without a blank being made in the great universe. I know,
now, that it is the same with good and evil, happiness and
sorrow, in the memories of men. Pity me! Relieve me!”

There was no response, but her ‘“‘ Help me, help me,
let me in!” and the boy’s struggling to get to her.

THE GIFT REVERSED 389

“Shadow of myself! Spirit of my darker hours! ”
cried Redlaw, in distraction, ‘‘ come back and haunt me
day and night, but take this gift away! Or, if it must still
rest with me, deprive me of the dreadful power of giving it
to others. Undo what I have done. Leave me benighted,
but restore the day to those whom I have cursed. As I
have spared this woman from the first, and as I never will
go forth again, but will die here, with no hand to tend me,
save this creature’s who is proof against me,—hear me! ”

The only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to her,
while he held him back; and the cry, increasing in its
energy, “‘ Help! let mein. He was your friend once, how
shall he be followed, how shall he be saved? They are all
changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, pray, let me
in! a”?

CHAPTER III

THE GIFT REVERSED

Nicut was still heavy in the sky. On open plains, from
hill-tops, and from the decks of solitary ships at sea, a distant
low-lying line, that promised by-and-by to change to light,
was visible in the dim horizon; but its promise was remote
and doubtful, and the moon was striving with the night
clouds busily.

The shadows upon Redlaw’s mind succeeded thick and
fast to one another, and obscured its light as the night
clouds hovered between the moon and earth, and kept the
latter veiled in darkness. Fitful and uncertain as the
shadows which the night-clouds cast, were their conceal-
ments from him, and imperfect revelations to him; and,
like the night-clouds still, if the clear light broke forth for a
moment, it was only that they might sweep over it, and
make the darkness deeper than before.

Without, there was a profound and solemn hush upon
the ancient pile of buildings, and its buttresses and angles
made dark shapes of mystery upon the ground, which now
seemed to retire into the smooth white snow and now seemed
to come out of it, as the moon’s path was more or less beset.
Within, the Chemist’s room was indistinct and murky,
by the light of the expiring lamp; a ghostly silence had
succeeded to the knocking and the voice outside; nothing

390 THE HAUNTED MAN

was audible but, now and then, a low sound among the
whitened ashes of the fire, as of its yielding up its last breath.
Before it on the ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his
chair, the Chemist sat, as he had sat there, since the calling
at his door had ceased—like a man turned to stone.

At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before,
began to play. He listened to it at first, as he had listened
in the churchyard; but presently—it playing still, and being
borne towards him on the night air, in a low, sweet, melan-
choly strain—he rose, and stood stretching his hands about
him, as if there were some friend approaching within his
reach, on whom his desolate touch might rest, yet do no
harm. As he did this, his face became less fixed and
wondering; a gentle trembling came upon him; and at last
his eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands before them,
and bowed down his head.

His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not
come back to him; he knew that it was not restored; he
had no passing belief or hope that it was. But some dumb
stir within him made him capable, again, of being moved
by what was hidden, afar off, in the music. If it were only
that it told him sorrowfully the value of what he had lost,
he thanked Heaven for it with a fervent gratitude.

As the last chord died upon his ears, he raised his head
to listen to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so
that his sleeping figure lay at his feet, the Phantom stood,
immovable and silent, with its eyes upon him.

Ghastly it was, as it had ever been, but not so cruel and
relentless in its aspect—or he thought or hoped so, as he
looked upon it, trembling. It was not alone, but in its
shadowy hand it held another hand.

And whose was that? Was the form that stood beside
it indeed Milly’s, or but her shade and picture? The quiet
head was bent a little, as her manner was, and her eyes
were looking down, as if in pity, on the sleeping child. A
radiant light fell on her face, but did not touch the Phantom;
for, though close beside, it was dark and colourless as ever.

“Spectre!” said the Chemist, newly troubled as he
looked, “I have not been stubborn or presumptuous in
respect to her. Oh, do not bring her here. Spare me that!”

“This is but a shadow,” said the Phantom; ‘ when the

morning shines, seek out the realitv whose image I present
before you.”

THE GIFT REVERSED 391

** Is it my inexorable doom to do so? ” cried the Chemist.

“It is,” replied the Phantom.

“To destroy her peace, her goodness; to make her what
I am myself, and what I have made of others! ”

“I have said, ‘ seek her out,’ ”’ returned the Phantom,
“ T have said no more.”

“ Oh, tell me,” exclaimed Redlaw, catching at the hope
which he fancied might lie hidden in the words. ‘“ Can I
undo what I have done? ”

“No,” returned the Phantom.

“‘T do not ask for restoration to myself,” said Redlaw.
“‘ What I abandoned, I abandoned of my own will, and have
justly lost. But for those to whom I have transferred the
fatal gift: who never sought it; who unknowingly received
a curse of which they had no warning, and which they had
no power to shun; can I do nothing? ”

“ Nothing,” said the Phantom.

“ Tf I cannot, can any one? ”’

The Phantom, standing like a statue, kept his gaze upon
him for a while; then turned its head suddenly, and looked
upon the shadow at its side.

“Ah! Can she?” cried Redlaw, still looking upon the
shade.

The Phantom released the hand it had retained till now,
and softly raised its own with a gesture of dismissal. Upon
that, her shadow, still preserving the same attitude, began
to move or melt away.

“Stay,” cried Redlaw, with an earnestness to which
he could not give enough expression. ‘‘Foramoment! As
an act of mercy! I know that some change fell upon me,
when those sounds were in the air just now. Tell me, have
I lost the power of harming her? May I go near her without
dread? Oh, let her give me any sign of hope!”

The Phantom looked upon the shade as he did—not at
him—and gave no answer.

“* At least, say this—has she, henceforth, the conscious-
ness of any power to set right what I have done? ”

“She has not,” the Phantom answered.

‘“‘Has she the power bestowed on her without the
consciousness? ””

The Phantom answered: “ Seek her out.” And her
shadow slowly vanished.

They were face to face again, and looking on each other,

392 THE HAUNTED MAN

as intently and awfully as at the time of the bestowal of the
gift, across the boy who still lay on the ground between
them, at the Phantom’s feet.

“Terrible instructor,” said the Chemist, sinking on his
knee before it, in an attitude of supplication, “ by whom
I was renounced, but by whom I am revisited (in which,
and in whose milder aspect, I would fain believe I have a
gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, praying that the
cry I have sent up in the anguish of my soul has been, or will
be, heard, in behalf of those whom I have injured beyond
human reparation. But there is one thing—”’

“* You speak to me of what is lying here,”” the Phantom
interposed, and pointed with his finger to the boy.

“TY do,’ returned the Chemist. ‘‘ You know what I
would ask. Why has this child alone been proof against
my influence, and why, why, have I detected in its thoughts
a terrible companionship with mine?”

“ This,’ said the Phantom, pointing to the boy, “ is
the last, completest illustration of a human creature, utterly
bereft of such remembrances as you have yielded up. No
softening memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble enters here,
because this wretched mortal from his birth has been
abandoned to a worse condition than the beasts, and has,
within his knowledge, no one contrast, no humanising touch,
to make a grain of such a memory spring up in his hardened
breast. All within this desolate creature is barren wilder-
ness. All within the man bereft of what you have resigned,
is the same barren wilderness. Woe to such aman! Woe,
tenfold, to the nation that shall count its monsters such as
this, lying here, by hundreds and by thousands! ”

Redlaw shrunk, appalled, from what he heard.

“There is not,’ said the Phantom, “ one of these—not
one—but shows a harvest that mankind must REAP. From
every seed of evil in this boy, a field of ruin is grown that
shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in
many places in the world, until regions are overspread with
wickedness enough to raise the waters of another Deluge.
Open and unpunished murder in a city’s streets would be
less guilty in its daily toleration, than one such spectacle as
this.”

It seemed to look down upon the boy in his sleep.
Redlaw, too, looked down upon him with a new emotion.

“There is not a father.” said the Phantom, ‘‘ by whose

THE GIFT REVERSED 393

side in his daily or his nightly walk, these creatures pass;
there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers
in this land; there is no one risen from the state of child-
hood, but shall be responsible in his or her degree for this
enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth
on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion
upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon
earth it would not put to shame.”

The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with tremb-
ling fear and pity, from the sleeping boy to the Phantom,
standing above him with his finger pointing down.

“ Behold, I say,” pursued the Spectre, ‘“‘ the perfect
type of what it was your choice to be. Your influence
is powerless here, because from this child’s bosom you can
banish nothing. His thoughts have been in ‘terrible
companionship ’ with yours, because you have gone down
to his unnatural level. He is the growth of man’s indiffer-
ence; you are the growth of man’s presumption. The
beneficent design of Heaven is in each case, overthrown,
and from the two poles of the immaterial world you come
together.”

The Chemist stooped upon the ground beside the boy,
and with the same kind of compassion for him that he now
felt for himself, covered him as he slept, and no longer
shrunk from him with abhorrence or indifference.

Soon, now, the distant line on the horizon brightened,
the darkness faded, the sun rose red and glorious, and the
chimney stacks and gables of the ancient building gleamed
in the clear air, which turned the smoke and vapour of the
city into a cloud of gold. The very sun-dial in his shady
corner, where the wind was used to spin with such an un-
windy constancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that
had accumulated on his dull old face in the night, and
looked out at the little white wreaths eddying round and
round him. Doubtless some blind groping of the morning
made its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and
earthy, where the Norman arches were half buried in the
ground, and stirred the dull deep sap in the lazy vegetation
hanging to the walls, and quickened the slow principle
of life within the little world of wonderful and delicate
creation which existed there, with some faint knowledge
that the sun was up.

The Tetterbys were up, and doing. Mr. Tetterby

394 THE HAUNTED MAN

took down the shutters of the shop, and strip by strip
revealed the treasures of the window to the eyes, so proof
against their seductions, of Jerusalem Buildings. Adolphus
had been out so long already, that he was half-way on to
Morning Pepper. Five small Tetterbys, whose ten round
eyes were much inflamed by soap and friction, were in the
tortures of a cool wash in the back kitchen; Mrs. Tetterby
presiding. Johnny, who was pashed and hustled through
his toilet with great rapidity when Moloch chanced to be in
an exacting frame of mind (which was always the case),
staggered up and down with his charge before the shop
door, under greater difficulties than usual; the weight of
Moloch being much increased by a complication of defences
against the cold, composed of knitted worsted work, and
forming a complete suit of chain armour, with a head-piece
and blue gaiters.

It was,a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting
teeth. Whether they never came, or whether they came
and went away again, is not in evidence; butit had certainly
cut enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to make a
handsome dental provision for the sign of the Bull and
Mouth. All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing
of its gums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dangling
at its waist (which was immediately under its chin), a bone
ring, large enough to have represented the rosary of a young
nun, Knife-handles, umbrella-tops, the heads of walking-
sticks selected from the stock, the fingers of the family in
general, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, crusts,
the handles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of
pokers, were among the commonest instruments indiscrimin-
ately applied for this baby’s relief. The amount of
electricity that must have been rubbed out of it in one week
is not to be calculated. Still Mr. Tetterby always said “‘ it
was coming through, and then the child would be herself; ”
and still it never did come through, and the child continued
to be somebody else.

The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed
with a few hours. Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves
were not more altered than their offspring. Usually they
were an unselfish, good-natured, yielding little race, sharing
short-commons when it happened (which was pretty often)
contentedly and even generously, and taking a great deal of
enjoyment out of a very little meat. But they were fighting |

THE GIFT REVERSED 395

now, not only for the soap and water, but even for the
breakfast which was yet in perspective. The hand of every
little Tetterby was against the other little Tetterbys; and
even Johnny’s hand—the patient, much-enduring, and
devoted Johnny—rose against the baby! Yes, Mrs.
Tetterby, going to the door by a mere accident, saw him
viciously pick out a weak place in the suit of armour where
a slap would tell, and slap that blessed child.

Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour by the collar,
in that same flash of time, and repaid him the assault with
usury thereto.

“You brute, you murdering little boy,’ said Mrs.
Tetterby. ‘‘ Had you the heart to do it? ”

“Why don’t her teeth come through then,” retorted
Johnny, in a loud rebellious voice, ‘‘ instead of bothering
me? How would you like it yourself? ”

“ Like it, sir!’ said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his
dishonoured load.

“Yes, like it,” said Johnny. ‘“ How would you? Not
at all. If you was me, you’d go for a soldier. I will, too.
There an’t no babies in the army.”

Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action,
rubbed his chin thoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel,
and seemed rather struck by this view of a military life.

““T wish I was in the army myself, if the child’s in the
right,” said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, “ for
I have no peace of my life here. I’m a slavye—a Virginia
slave; ”’ some indistinct association with their weak descent
on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this aggravated
expression to Mrs. Tetterby. ‘‘ I never have a holiday,
or any pleasure at all, from year’s end to year’s end! Why,
Lord bless and save the child,’”’ said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking
the baby with an irritability hardly suited to so pious an
inspiration, ‘‘ what’s the matter with her now?”

Not being able to discover, and not rendering the subject
much clearer by shaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the baby
away in a cradle, and, folding her arms, sat rocking it angrily
with her foot.

“‘ How you stand there, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby
to her husband. ‘‘ Why don’t you do something? ”

“Because I don’t care about doing anything,” Mr.
Tetterby replied.

“TI am sure J don’t,” said Mrs, Tetterby.

396 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ Yll take my oath J don’t,” said Mr. Tetterby.

A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five
younger brothers, who, in preparing the family breakfast
table, had fallen to skirmishing for the temporary possession
of the loaf, and were buffeting one another with great
heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with precocious dis-
cretion, hovering outside the knot of combatants, and
harassing their legs. Into the midst of this fray, Mr.
and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated themselves with great
ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which
they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains
of their late soft-heartedness, laid about them without any
lenity, and done much execution, resumed their former
relative positions.

“You had better read your paper than do nothing at
all,” said Mrs. Tetterby.

‘““What’s there to read in a paper?” returned Mr.
Tetterby, with excessive discontent.

“What?” said Mrs. Tetterby. ‘“ Police.”

* Tt’s nothing to me,” said Tetterby. ‘* What do I care
what people do, or are done to.”

“ Suicides,’”” suggested Mrs. Tetterby.

‘*No business of mine,” replied her husband.

“ Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to
you? ”’ said Mrs. Tetterby.

“Tf the births were all over for good, and all to-day;
and the deaths were all to begin to come off to-morrow;
I don’t see why it should interest me, till I thought it was
a-coming to my turn,” grumbled Tetterby. ‘As to
marriages I’ve done it myself. I know quite enough about
them.”

To judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face and
manner, Mrs. Tetterby appeared to entertain the same
opinions as her husband; but she opposed him, nevertheless,
for the gratification of quarrelling with him.

“Oh, you're a consistent man,” said Mrs. Tetterby,
“an’t you? You, with the screen of your own making
there, made of nothing else but bits of newspapers, which
you sit and read to the children by the half-hour together! ”

“Say used to, if you please,’’ returned her husband.
“You won’t find me doing so any more. I’m wiser, now.”

“ Baht! wiser, indeed!’ said Mrs. Tetterby. ‘‘ Are you
better? ”’

THE GIFT REVERSED 397

The question sounded some discordant note in Mr.
Tetterby’s breast. He ruminated dejectedly, and passed
his hand across and across his forehead.

“ Better! ’? murmured Mr. Tetterby. “I don’t know
as any of us are better, or happier either. Better, is it?”

He turned to the screen, and traced about it with his
finger, until he found a certain paragraph of which he was
in quest.

“This used to be one of the family favourites, I re-
collect,” said Tetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, “ and
used to draw tears from the children, and make ’em good, if
there was any little bickering or discontent among ’em,
next to the story of the robin redbreasts in the wood.
‘Melancholy case of destitution. Yesterday a small man,
with a baby in his arms, and surrounded by half-a-dozen
ragged little ones, of various ages between ten and two, the
whole of whom were evidently in a famishing condition,
appeared before the worthy magistrate and made the
following recital: —Ha! I don’t understand it, I’m sure,”
said Tetterby; ‘‘ I don’t see what it has got to do with us.”

“How old and shabby he looks,” said Mrs. Tetterby,
watching him. “‘ I never saw such a change in a man.
Ah! dear me, dear me, dear me, it was a sacrifice! ”’

“What was a sacrifice? ’’ her husband sourly inquired.

Mrs Tetterby shook her head; and without replying in
words, raised a complete sea-storm about the baby, by her
violent agitation of the cradle.

“If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good
woman—” said her husband.

“TI do mean it,” said his wife.

““ Why, then I mean to say,”’ pursued Mr. Tetterby, as
sulkily and surlily as she, “ that there are two sides to that
affair; and that J was the sacrifice; and that I wish the
sacrifice hadn’t been accepted.”

“‘T wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul
I do assure you,” said his wife. ‘‘ You can’t wish it more
than I do, Tetterby.”

“T don’t know what I saw in her,’ muttered the news-
man. “ I’m sure;—certainly, if I saw anything, it’s not
there now. I was thinking so, last night, after supper, by
the fire. She’s fat, she’s ageing, she won’t bear comparison
with most other women.”’

“‘He’s common-looking, he has no air with him, he’s

398 THE HAUNTED MAN

small, he’s beginning to stoop, and he’s getting bald,”
muttered Mrs. Tetterby.

“T must have been half out of my mind when I did it,”
muttered Mr. Tetterby.

“My senses must have forsook me. That’s the only
way in which I can explain it to myself,’”’ said Mrs. Tetterby,
with elaboration.

In this mood they sat down to breakfast. The little
Tetterbys were not habituated to regard that meal in the
light of a sedentary occupation, but discussed it as a dance
or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony, in the oc-
¢asional shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and butter,
with which it was accompanied, as well as in the intricate
filings off into the street and back again, and the hoppings
up and down the doorsteps, which was incidental to the
performance. In the present instance, the contentions
between these Tetterby children for the milk-and-water
jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented
so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high
indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Doctor
Watts. It was not until Mr. Tetterby had driven the
whole herd out at the front door, that a moment’s peace was
secured; and even that was broken by the discovery that
Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was at that
instant choking in the jug like a ventriloquist, in his in-
decent and rapacious haste.

“These children will be the death of me at last!” said
Mrs. Tetterby, after banishing the culprit. ‘* And the sooner
the better, I think.”

“Poor people,” said Mr. Tetterby, “‘ ought not to have
children at all. They give us no pleasure.”

He was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs.
Tetterby had rudely pushed towards him, and Mrs. Tetterby
was lifting her own cup to her lips, when they were both
stepped, as if they were transfixed.

“Herel Mother! Father!” cried Johnny, rushing into
theroom. “ Here’s Mrs. William coming down the street! ”

And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a
baby from a cradle with the care of an old nurse, and hushed
and soothed it tenderly, and tottered away with it cheer-
fully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was that baby, as
they went out together!

Mr. Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs. Tetterby put down

THE GIFT REVERSED 399

her cup. Mr. Tetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs. Tetterby
rubbed hers. Mr. Tetterby’s face began to smooth and
brighten; Mrs. Tetterby’s began to smooth and brighten.

“Why, Lord forgive me,” said Mr. Tetterby to himself,
“what evil tempers have I been giving way to! What has
been the matter here! ”’

“How could I ever treat him ill again, after all Isaid and felt
last night! ” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her apron to her eyes.

“ Am Ia brute,” said Mr. Tetterby, “‘ or is there any good
in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!”

““*Dolphus dear,”’ returned his wife.

*“ I—I’ve been in a state of mind,” said Mr. Tetterby,
“ that I can’t abear to think of, Sophy.”

“Oh! It’s nothing to what I’ve been in, Dolf,”’ cried
his wife in a great burst of grief.

““My Sophia,’ said Mr. Tetterby, “ don’t take on. I
never shall forgive myself, I must have nearly broke your
heart, I know.”

“No, Dolf, no. It was me! Me!” cried Mrs. Tetterby.

“ My little woman,” said her husband, ‘‘ don’t. You
make me reproach myself dreadful, when you show such a
noble spirit. Sophia, my dear, you don’t know what I
thought. I showed it bad enough no doubt; but what I
thought, my little woman—”

“ Oh, dear Dolf, don’t! Don’t!” cried his wife.

** Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “‘I must reveal it. I
couldn’t rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. My
little woman—”’

“‘Mrs. William’s very nearly here!’’ screamed Johnny
at the door.

““My little woman, I wondered how,” gasped Mr.
Tetterby, supporting himself by his chair. ‘“‘ I wondered
how I had ever admired you—I forgot the precious children
you have brought about me, and thought you didn’t look as
slim as I could wish. I—I never gave a recollection,” said
Mr. Tetterby, with severe self-accusation, “to the cares
you’ve had as my wife, and along of me and mine, when you
might have had hardly any with another man, who got on
better and was luckier than me (anybody might have found
such a man easily I am sure); and I quarrelled with you
for having aged a little in the rough years you have lightened
for me. Can you believe it, my little woman? I hardly

can myself.”

400 THE HAUNTED MAN

Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying,
caught his face within her hands, and held it there.

“Oh, Dolf!” she cried. “I am so happy that you
thought so; I am so grateful that you thought so! For
I thought that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so you
are, my dear, and may you be the commonest of all sights
in my eyes, till you close them with your own good hands.
I thought that you were small; and so you are, and I'll
make’ much of you because you are, and more of you because
I love my husband. I thought that you began to stoop;
and so you do, and you shall lean on me, and I'll do all I
can to keep you up. Ithought there was no air about you;
but there is and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and
the best there is, and Gop bless home once more, and all
belonging to it, Dolf.”

“ Hurrah! Here’s Mrs. William!” cried Johnny.

So she was, and all the children with her; and as she
came in, they kissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed
the baby, and kissed their father and mother, and then
ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on
with her in triumph.

Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand
in the warmth of their reception. They were as much
attracted to her as the children were; they ran towards her,
kissed her hands, pressed round her, could not receive her
ardently or enthusiastically enough. She came among them
like the spirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration,
love, and domesticity.

“What! are you all so glad to see me, too, this bright
Christmas morning? ”’ said Milly, clapping her hands in a
pleasant wonder. ‘‘ Oh dear, how delightful this is!”

More shouting from the children, more kissing, more
trooping around her, more happiness, more love, more joy,
more honour, on all sides than she could bear.

“Oh dear! ’’ said Milly, ** what delicious tears you make
me shed. How can I ever have deserved this! What have
I done to be so loved?”

“Who can help it!”’ cried Mr. Tetterby.

“Who can help it!’ cried Mrs. Tetterby.

“Who can help it!’’ echoed the children, in a joyful
chorus. And they danced and trooped about her again, and
clung to her, and laid their rosy faces against her dress, and
kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle it, or her enough.

THE GIFT REVERSED 401

“I never was so moved,” said Milly, drying her eyes,
“as Ihave been this morning. I must tell you, as soon as I
can speak.—Mr. Redlaw came to me at sunrise, and with a
tenderness in his manner, more as if I had been his darling
daughter than myself, implored me to go with him to where
William’s brother George is lying ill. We went together, and
all the way along he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed
to put such trust and hope in me, that I could not help crying
with pleasure. When we got to the house, we met a woman
at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt her, I am afraid)
who caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I passed.”

“She was right,” said Mr. Tetterby. Mrs. Tetterby said
she was right. All the children cried out she was right.

“ Ah, but there’s more than that,” said Milly. ‘‘ When
we got upstairs into the room, the sick man who had lain
for hours in a state from which no effort could rouse him,
rose up in his bed, and bursting into tears, stretched out his
arms to me, and said that he had led a mis-spent life, but
that he was truly repentant now, in his sorrow for the past,
which was all as plain to him as a great prospect from which
a dense black cloud had cleared away, and that he entreated
me to ask his poor old father for his pardon and his blessing,
and to say a prayer beside his bed. And when I did so, Mr.
Redlaw joined in it so fervently, and then so thanked and
thanked me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite
overflowed, and I could have done nothing but sob and cry,
if the sick man had not begged me to sit down by him,—
which made me quiet of course. As I sat there, he held my
hand in his until he sunk in a doze; and even then, when I[
withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr.
Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his
hand felt for mine,.so that some one else was obliged to take
my place and make believe to give him my hand back. Oh
dear, oh dear,” said Milly, sobbing. ‘‘ How thankful and
how happy I should feel, and do feel, for all this! ””

While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after
pausing for a moment to observe the group of which she was
the centre, had silently ascended the stairs. Upon those
stairs he now appeared again; remaining there, while the
young student passed him, and came running down.

“Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,” he said,
falling on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, “ forgive
my cruel ingratitude! ”

402 THE HAUNTED MAN

“ Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Milly innocently, “ here’s
another of them! Oh dear, here’s somebody else who likes
me. What shall I ever do!”

The guileless, simple way in which she said it, and in
which she put her hands before her eyes and wept for very
happiness, was as touching as it was delightful.

“‘T was not myself,” he said. ‘ I don’t know what I
was—it was some consequence of my disorder perhaps—
I was mad. But Iam sono longer. Almost as I speak, I
am réstored. I heard the children crying out your name,
and the shade passed from me at the very sound of it. Oh
don’t weep! Dear Milly, if you could read my heart, and
only know with what affection and what grateful homage
it is glowing, you would not let me see you weep. It is such
deep reproach.”

“No, no,” said Milly, “it’s not that. It’s not indeed.
It’s joy. It’s a wonder that you should think it necessary
to ask me to forgive so little, and yet it’s pleasure that you
ao.

“ And will you come again? and will you finish the little
curtain? ”

“No,” said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her head.
“You won't care for my needlework now.”

“Ts it forgiving me, to say that?”

She beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear.

“There is news from your home, Mr. Edmund.”

**"News? How?”

“Either your not writing when you were very ill or the
change in your handwriting when you began to be better,
created some suspicion of the truth; however that is—but

you're sure you'll not be the worse for any news, if it’s
not bad news? ”

* Sure,”?
“Then there’s some one come! ”’ said Milly.
“My mother?” asked the student, glancing round

involuntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from
the stairs.

“Hush! No,” said Milly.

“Tt can be no one else.”

“ Indeed,” said Milly, “‘ are you sure? ”’

“It is not—’’ Before he could say more, she put her
hand close upon his mouth.

“Yes it is!’ said Milly. ‘ The young lady (she is very

THE GIFT REVERSED 403

like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too
unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up,
last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated
your letters from the college, she came there; and before I
saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her. She likes me
too! ’’ said Milly. ‘‘ Oh dear, that’s another! ”

“This morning! Where is she now? ”

“ Why, she is now,” said Milly, advancing her lips to his
ear, “in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see
you.”

He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she
detained him.

““Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this
morning that his memory is impaired. Be very considerate
to him, Mr. Edmund; he needs that from us all.”

The young man assured her, by a look, that her caution
was not ill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist on his
way out, bent respectfully and with an obvious interest
before him.

Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even
humbly, and looked after him as he passed on. He dropped
his head upon his hand too, as trying to re-awaken some-
thing he had lost. But it was gone.

The abiding change that had come upon him since the
influence of the music, and the Phantom’s reappearance,
was, that now he truly felt how much he had lost, and could
compassionate his own condition, and contrast it, clearly,
with the natural state of those who were around him. In
this, an interest in those who were around him was revived,
and a meek, submissive sense of his calamity was bred,
resembling that which sometimes obtains in age, when its
mental powers are weakened, without insensibility or sullen-
ness being added to the list of its infirmities.

He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly,
more and more of the evil he had done, and as he was more
and more with her, this change ripened itself within him. .
Therefore, and because of the attachment she inspired him
with (but without other hope), he felt that he was quite
dependent on her, and that she was his staff in his affliction.

So, when she asked him whether they should go home
now, to where the old man and her husband were, and he
readily replied ‘‘ yes’”—being anxious in that regard—
he put his arm through hers, and walked beside her; not as

404 THE HAUNTED MAN

if he were the wise and learned man to whom the wonders
of nature were an open book, and hers were the uninstructed
mind, but as if their two positions were reversed, and he
knew nothing, and she all.

He saw the children throng about her, and caress her,
as he and she went away together thus, out of the house;
he heard the ringing of their laughter, and their merry
voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering around him like
flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and
affection of their parents; he breathed the simple air of their
poor home, restored to its tranquillity; he thought of the
unwholesome blight he had shed upon it, and might, but
for her, have been diffusing then; and perhaps it is no
wonder that he walked submissively beside her, and drew
her gentle bosom nearer to his own.

When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting
in his chair in the chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the
ground, and his son was leaning against the opposite side
of the fireplace, looking at him. As she came in at the door,
both started, and turned round towards he}, and a radiant
change came upon their faces.

‘Oh dear, dear, dear, they are pleased to see me like
the rest! ’’ cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy,
and stopping short. ‘‘ Here are two more!”

Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She
ran into her husband’s arms, thrown wide open to receive
her, and he would have been glad to have her there, with her
head lying on his shoulder, through the short winter’s day.
But the old man couldn’t spare her. He had arms for her
too, and he locked her in them.

“ Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time? ”’
said the old man. ‘She has been a long while away. I
find that it’s impossible for me to get on without Mouse.
I—where’s my son William?—I fancy I have been dreaming,
William.”’

“That’s what I say myself, father,’ returned the son.
““ I have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think.—How are
you, father? Are you pretty well? ”

“Strong and brave, my boy,” returned the old man.

It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands
with his father, and patting him on the back, and rubbing
him gently down with his hand, as if he could not possibly
do enough to show an interest in him.

THE GIFT REVERSED 405

““What a wonderful man you are, father!—How are
you, father, Are you really pretty hearty, though?” said
William, shaking hands with him again, and patting him
again, and rubbing him gently down again.

“T never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy.”

“What a wonderful man you are, father! But that’s
exactly where it is,” said Mr. William with enthusiasm.
“When I think of all that my father’s gone through, and
all the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, that
have happened to him in the course of his long life, and
under which his head has grown grey, and years upon years
have gathered on it, I feel as if we couldn’t do enough to
honour the old gentleman, and make his old age easy. How
are you, father? Are you really pretty well though? ”

Mr. William might never have left off repeating this
inquiry, and shaking hands with him again, and patting
him again, and rubbing him down again, if the old man had
not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not seen.

“T ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw,” said Philip, “ but
didn’t know you were here, sir, or should have made less
free. It reminds me, Mr. Redlaw, seeing you here on a
Christmas morning, of the time when you was a student
yourself, and worked so hard that you was backwards and
forwards in our Library even at Christmas time. Ha! ha!
I’m old enough to remember that; and I remember it right
well, I do, though I am eighty-seven. It was after you
left here that my poor wife died. You remember my poor
wife, Mr. Redlaw? ”

The Chemist answered yes.

““ Yes,”’ said the old man. ‘“ She was a dear creetur—I
recollect you came here one Christmas morning with a young
lady—I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw, but I think it was
a sister you was very much attached to? ”’

The Chemist looked at him and shook his head. ‘ I had
a sister,” he said vacantly. He knew no more.

“One Christmas morning,’”’ pursued the old man, “ that
you come here with her—and it began to snow, and my wife
invited the young lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is
always a-burning on Christmas Day in what used to be,
before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner
Hall. Iwas there; and I recollect, as I was stirring up the
blaze for the young lady to warm her pretty feet by, she
read the scroll out loud, that is underneath the picter.

406 THE HAUNTED MAN

‘Lord, keep my memory green!’ She and my poor wife
fell a-talking about it; and it’s a strange thing to think of,
now, that they both said (both being se unlike to die) that
it was a good prayer, and that it was one they would put
up very earnestly, if they were called young, with reference
to those who were dearest to them. ‘ My brother,’ says
the young lady—‘ My husband,’ says my poor wife.—‘ Lord,
keep his memory of me green, and do not let me be for-
gotten!’ ”’

Tears more painful, and more bitter than he had ever
shed in all his life, coursed down Redlaw’s face. Philip,
fully occupied in recalling his story, had not observed him
until now, nor Milly’s anxiety that he should not proceed.

* Philip! ’’? said Redlaw, laying his hand upon his arm,
“T am a stricken man, on whom the hand of providence
has fallen heavily, although deservedly. You speak to
me, my friend, of what I cannot follow; my memory is
gone.”

** Merciful Power! ” cried the old man.

** Thave lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble,”
said the Chemist, ‘‘ and with that I have lost all man would
remember! ”’

To see old Philip’s pity for him, to see him wheel his own
great chair for him to rest in, and look down upon him with
a solemn sense of his bereavement, was to know, in some
degree, how precious to old age such recollections are.

The boy came running in, and ran to Milly.

“ Here’s the man,” he said, ‘‘ in the other room, I don’t
want him.”

““What man does he mean?” asked Mr. William.

“ Hush!” said Milly.

Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old father softly
withdrew. As they went out, unnoticed, Redlaw beckoned
to the boy to come to him.

*T like the woman best,’”’ he answered, holding to her
skirts.

“You are right,” said Redlaw, with a faint smile. “ But
. you needn't fear to come to me. I am gentler than I was.
Of all the world to you, poor child! ”

The boy still held back at first, but yielding little by
little to her urging, he consented to approach, and even to
sit down at his feet. As Redlaw laid his hand upon the
shoulder of the child, leoking on him with compassion and

THE GIFT REVERSED 407

a fellow-feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly. She
stooped down on that side of him, so that she could look
into his face; and after silence, said:

“Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you?”

“Yes,” he answered, fixing his eyes upon her. “ Your
voice and music are the same to me.”

““May I ask you something? ”

“What you will.”

“Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at
your door last night? About one who was your friend once,
and who stood on the verge of destruction? ”

“Yes, I remember,” he said, with some hesitation.

““Do you understand it? ”

He smoothed the boy’s hair—looking at her fixedly the
while, and shook his head.

“This person,” said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, which
her mild eyes, looking at him, made clearer and softer, ‘‘ I
found soon afterwards. I went back to the house, and,
with Heaven’s help, traced him. I was not too soon. A
very little and I should have been too late.”

He took her hand from the boy, and laying it on the
back of that hand of hers, whose timid and yet earnest touch
addressed him no less appealingly than her voice and eyes,
looked more intently on her.

“ He is the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman.
wesawjustnow. His real name is Longford.—You recollect
the name? ”

“* T recollect the name.”

“ And the man? ”

“No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me? ”

Ape A Bes

“Ah! Then it’s hopeless—hopeless.”

He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he
held, as though mutely asking her commiseration.

“IT did not go to Mr. Edmund last night,” said Milly,—
“ You will listen to me just the same as if you did remember
all? a”? °

“* To every syllable you say.”

“Both, because I did not know, then, that this really
was his father, and because I was fearful of the effect of
such intelligence upon him after his illness, if it should be.
Since I have known who this person is, I have not gone
either; but that is for another reason. He has long been

408 THE HAUNTED MAN

separated from his wife and son—has been a stranger to
tris home almost from his son’s infancy, I learn from him—
and has abandoned and deserted what he should have held
most dear. In all that time he has been falling from the
state of a gentleman, more and more, until—” she rose up,
hastily, and going out for a moment, returned, accompanied
by the wreck that Redlaw had beheld last night.

“Do you know me? ” asked the Chemist.

“T should be glad,” returned the other, “‘ and that is
an unwonted word for me to use, if I could answer no.”

The Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abase-
ment and degradation before him, and would have looked
longer, in an ineffectual struggle for enlightenment, but that
Milly resumed her late position by his side, and attracted
his attentive gaze to her own face.

** See how low he is sunk, how lost he is! ”’ she whispered,
stretching out her arm towards him, without looking from the
Chemist’s face. ‘‘ If you could remember all that is con-
nected with him, do you think it would move your pity
to reflect that one you ever loved (do not let us mind how
long ago, or in what belief that he has forfeited), should come
to this? ”’

““T hope it would,” he answered. ‘I believe it would.”

His eyes wandered to the figure standing near the door,
but came back speedily to her, on whom he gazed intently,
as if he strove to learn some lesson from every tone of her
voice, and every beam of her eyes.

“T have no learning, and you have much,” said Milly;
“Tam not used to think, and you are always thinking.
May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to
remember wrong that has been done us?”

* Yes,”

“ That we may forgive it.”

“Pardon me, great Heaven!” said Redlaw, lifting up
his eyes, “for having thrown away thine own high attri-
bute! ”’

“ And if,’ said Milly, “ if your memory should one day
be restored, as we will hope and pray it may be, would it
not be a blessing to you to recall at once a wrong and its
forgiveness? ”

He looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his
attentive eyes on her again; a ray of clearer light appeared
to him to shine into his mind, from her bright face.

THE GIFT REVERSED 409

““He cannot go to his abandoned home. He does not
seek to go there. He knows that he could only carry shame
and trouble to those he has so cruelly neglected; and that
the best reparation he can make them nowy, is to avoid them.
A very little money carefully bestowed would remove him
to some distant place, where he might live and do no wrong,
and make such atonement as is left within his power for
the wrong he has done. To the unfortunate lady who is
his wife, and to his son, this would be the best and kindest
boon that their best friend could give them—one too that
they need never know of; and to him, shattered in reputa-
tion, mind, and body, it might be salvation.”

He took her head between his hands, and kissed it, and
said: ‘‘Itshall be done. I trust to you to doit for me, now
and secretly; and to tell him that I would forgive him, if I
were so happy as to know for what.”

As she rose and turned her beaming face towards the
fallen man, implying that her mediation had been successful,
he advanced a step, and without raising his eyes, addressed
himself to Redlaw.

“You are so generous,” he said, ‘‘—you ever were—
that you will try to banish your rising sense of retribution
in the spectacle that is before you. I do not try to banish
it from myself, Redlaw. If you can, believe me.”

The Chemist entreated Milly, by gesture, to come nearer
to him; and, as he listened, looked into her face, as if to find
in it the clue to what he heard.

“I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I
recollect my own career too well, to array any such before
you. But from the day on which I made my first step
downward, in dealing falsely by you, I have gone down
with a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, I say.”

Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face
towards the speaker, and there was sorrow in it. Some-
thing like mournful recognition too.

“I might have been another man, my life might have
been another life, if I had avoided that first fatal step. I
don’t know that it would have been. I claim nothing for
the possibility. Your sister is at rest, and better than she
could have been with me, if I had continued even what you
thought me; even what I once supposed myself to be.”

Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he
would have put that subject on one side.

410 THE HAUNTED MAN

“I speak,” the other went on, “ like a man taken from
the grave. I should have made my own grave, last night,
had it not been for this blessed hand.”

“Oh dear, he likes me too!” sobbed Milly, under her
breath. ‘‘ That’s another!”

“‘T could not have put myself in your way, last night, even
for bread. But to-day, my recollection of what has been is
so strongly stirred, and is presented to me, I don’t know
how, so vividly, that I have dared to come at her suggestion,
and to take your bounty and to thank you for it, and to beg
you, Redlaw, in your dying hour, to be as merciful to me
in your thoughts, as you are in your deeds.”

He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on
his way forth.

“| hope my son may interest you for his mother’s sake.
I hope he may deserve to do so. Unless my life should be
preserved a long time, and I should know that I have not
misused your aid, I shall never look upon him more.”

Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first
time. Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him,
dreamily held out his hand. He returned and touched it
—little more—with both his own—and bending down his
head, went slowly out.

In the few moments that elapsed while Milly silently
took him to the gate, the Chemist dropped into his chair,
and covered his face with his hands. Seeing him thus, when
she came back, accompanied by her husband and his father
(who were both greatly concerned for him), she avoided
disturbing him, or permitting him to be disturbed; and
kneeled down near the chair to put some warm clothing on
the boy.

“That's exactly where it is. That’s what I always say,
father! ’’ exclaimed her admiring husband. “ There’s a
motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and
will have went! ”’

“ Ay, ay,” said the old man; “ you're right. My son
William’s right! ”’

“It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt,”
said Mr. William, tenderly, “‘ that we have no children of
our own; and yet I sometimes wish you had one to love and
cherish. Our little dead child that you built such hopes
upon, and that never breathed the breath of life—it has
made you quiet-like, Milly.’

THE GIFT REVERSED 411

“Tam very happy in the recollection of it, William dear,”
she answered. “I think of it every day.”

““ T was afraid you thought of it a good deal.”

3 Don’t say afraid; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to
me In so many ways. The innocent thing that never lived
on earth, is like an angel to me, William.”

“You are like an angel to father and me,” said William,
softly. “ I know that.”

“When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and
the many times I sat and pictured to myself the little smiling
face upon my bosom that never lay there, and the sweet
eyes turned up to mine that never opened to the light,’
said Milly, “‘ I can feel a greater tenderness, I think, for all
the disappointed hopes in which there is no harm. When
I see a beautiful child in its fond mother’s arms I love it all
the better, thinking that my child might have been like that,
and might have made my heart as proud and happy.”

Redlaw raised his head and looked towards her.

“ All through life, it seems by me,” she continued, ‘‘ to
tell me something. For poor neglected children, my little
child pleads as if it were alive, and had a voice I know, with
which to speak to me. When I hear of youth in suffering
er shame, I think that my child might have come to that.
Perhaps, and that God took it from me in His mercy. Even
in age and grey hair, such as father’s is at present: saying
that it too might have lived to be old, long and long after
you and I were gone, and to have needed the respect and
love of younger people.”

I{er quiet voice was quieter than ever, as she took her
husband’s arm, and laid her head against it.

“ Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy—it’s
a silly fancy, William—they have some way I don’t know
of, of feeling for my little child and me, and understanding
why their love is precious tome. If I have been quiet since,
I have been more happy, William, in a hundred ways.
Not least happy, dear, in this—that even when my little
child was born and dead but a few days, and I was weak
and sorrowful, and could not help grieving a little, the
thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good life, I should
meet in heaven a bright creature, who would call me
Mother! ”

Redlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry.

““O Thou,” he said, “‘ who through the teaching of pure

412 THE HAUNTED MAN

love, has graciously restored me to the memory which was
the memory of Christ upon the cross, and for all the good
who have perished in His cause, receive my thanks, and
bless her! ”

Then he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing more
than ever, cried as she laughed, ‘‘ He is come back to him-
self! He likes me very much indeed, too? Oh, dear, dear,
dear me, here’s another! ”

Then the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely
girl, who was afraid to come. And Redlaw so changed
towards him, seeing in him and his youthful choice the
softened shadow of that chastening passage in his own life,
to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so long imprisoned in
his solitary ark might fly for rest and company, fell upon
his neck, entreating them to be his children.

Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the
year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, and wrong,
and trouble in the world around us should be active with
us, not less,than our own experiences, for all good, he laid
his hand upon the boy, and silently calling Him to witness
who laid His hand on children in old time rebuking, in the
majesty of His prophetic knowledge, those who kept them
from Him, vowed to protect him, teach him, reclaim him.

Then he gave his right hand cheerily to Philip, and said
that they would that day hold a Christmas dinner in what
used to be, before the ten poor gentlemen commuted,
their great Dinner Hall; and that they would bid to it as
many of that Swidger family, who, his son had told him,
were so numerous that they might join hands and make
a ring round England, as could be brought together on
so short a notice.

And it was that day done. There were so many Swidgers
there, grown up and children, that an attempt to state
them in round numbers might engender doubts, in the
distrustful, of the veracity of this history. Therefore the
attempt shall not be made. But there they were, by
dozens and scores—and there was good news and good
hope there, ready for them, of George, who had been visited
again by his father and brother, and by Milly, and again
left in a quiet sleep. There, present at the dinner too, were
the Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, who arrived in
his prismatic comforter, in good time for the beef. Johnny
and the baby were too late, of course, and came in all on one

THE GIFT REVERSED 413

side, the one exhausted, the other in a supposed state of
double-tooth: but that was customary, and not alarming.

It was sad to see the child who had no name or lineage
watching the other children as they played, not knowing how
to talk with them, or sport with them, and more strange
to the ways of childhood than a rough dog. It was sad,
though in a different way, to see what an instinctive know-
ledge the youngest children there had of his being different
from all the rest, and how they made timid approaches to
him with soft words, and touches, and with little presents,
that he might not be unhappy. But he kept by Milly and
began to love her—that was another, as she said!—and as
they all liked her dearly, they were glad of that, and when
they saw him peeping at them from behind her chair, they
were pleased that he was so close to it.

All this, the Chemist, sitting with the student and his
bride that was to be, and Philip, and the rest, saw.

Some people have said since, that he only thought what
has been herein set down; others, that he read it in the fire
one winter night about the twilight time; others, that the
Ghost was but the representation of his own gloomy thoughts
and Milly the embodiment of his better wisdom. I say
nothing.

—Except this. That as they were assembled in the
old Hall, by no other light than that of a great fire (having
dined early), the shadows once more stole out of their
hiding-places, and danced about the room, showing the
children marvellous shapes and faces on the walls, and
gradually changing what was real and familiar there, to
what was wild and magical. But that there was one thing
in the hall, to which the eyes of Redlaw, and of Milly and
her husband, and of the old man, and of the Student, and
his bride that was to be, were often turned, which the
shadows did not obscure or change. Deepened in its
gravity by the firelight, and gazing from the darkness of
the panelled wall like life, the sedate face in the portrait,
with the beard and ruff, looked down at them from under
its verdant wreath of holly, as they looked up at it; and,
clear and plain below, as if a voice had uttered them, were
the words,

“Word, keep my Memory Green.”

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THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY

Lines
FIRST HUNDRED
VOLUMES

A LIST FOR REFERENCE

#* THE PEOPLE’S LIBRARY

. Treasure Island and Kidnapped—STEVENSON.
Adam Bede—ELIOT.

East Lynne—W OOD.

The Essays of Elia—LAMB.

. Ivanhoe—SCOTT.

A Tale of Two Cities—DICKENS,
. Poems, 1830-1865—TENNYSON.
” Westward Ho! INGA? er
. Sesame and Lilies, Unto this t,

and The Political Economy of Art } RUSKIN.
10. The Scarlet Lettee—HAWTHORNE.

11. The Cloister and the Hearth—READE.

12. The Christmas Books—DICKENS.

13. Tom Brown’s Schooldays—HUGHES.

14. King Solomon’s Mines—HAGGARD.

15. Poems (Selection, 1833-1865)—BROWNING.

16. John Halifax, Gentleman—CRAIK.

17. Essays and other Writings—BACON.

18. The Mill on the Floss—ELIOT.

19, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table—-HOLMES,

20. Kenilworth—SCOTT.

21, Jane Eyre—BRONTE.

22. Robinson Crusoe—DEFOE,

23. Waverley—SCOTT.

24. The Old Curiosity Shop—DICKENS.

25. Essays and other Writings—EMERSON,

I
z.
Sq.
4-
5
6.
7
8
9

26. Cranford—GASKELL.

27. Silas Marner—ELIOT.

28. Poems (Selection —-LONGFELLOW.
29. The Last Days of Pompeii—LYTTON.
30. Esmond—THACKERAY,

31. Pride and Prejudice—-AUSTEN.,

32. The Tower of London—AINSWORTH.
33. The Bible in Spain—BORROW.

34. The Last of the Mohicans—COOPER,
35

. The Opium Eater and other Writings—DE QUINCEY,
36—39. Complete Works—SHAKESPEARE,

40. Barnaby Rudge—DICKENS.

41. The Last of the Barons—LYTTON.

42. Fairy Tales (Selection\—ANDERSEN.

43. The Vicar of Wakefield and Poems—GOLDSMITH.
44. T